SCOTSBURN – It’s been a good year for the Friends of Redtail Society.
Saturday the nonprofit held its third annual general meeting and ratified membership for more than 40 new people.
“I think we’re really building a lot of momentum,” said Bernadette Romanowsky. “This past year was a very different kind of year from the first couple of years. We raised in excess of $50,000 this year so it shows how it jumped from maybe $4,000 the first year. The word is starting to get out.”
The society now has raised $85,000 toward the purchase of land off the MacBeth Road near Scotsburn that had been scheduled for clear cutting.
The 313-acre piece of land is in a watershed and is an Acadian forest with dozens of species of trees and hundreds of different plants and animals living in it.
“It started out as an attempt to get the company not to clear cut it, to donate it or whatever,” Romanowsky said.
“But it became clear that the only way we could save it was to buy it. To buy it we had to form a society and become a legal entity.”
The cost of the land is $220,000 plus HST. The initial deadline was Dec. 2009, but the company has since extended it to December of this year.
So far most of the money has come from concerned individuals who have made small donations or held fundraisers for the society.
“It’s basically individual people who are engaged,” Romanowsky said.
Once the land is purchased the society will manage the land in a way that is beneficial to it and to humans.
Parts of the forest would be left entirely in their natural state.
Other parts will have a trail which will be named Craig’s Way after Craig Chennell who was killed in a car accident last summer.
He had been a member of the society and was concerned that the land be preserved.
