In October 2024, Islands Trust Conservancy (ITC) worked with the Gabriola Land and Trails Trust (GALTT) and Gabriola Island landholder and dedicated conservationist, Yarrow Koontz, to protect most of the property with a NAPTEP covenant. Yarrow’s covenant protects 2.68 ha of forested wetlands, a pond, dry Arbutus forest, rocky balds, small cliffs, and habitat for otters, frogs, owls, salmon lizards, and more. Yarrow’s covenant area protects not only a diversity of habitats, but also the transition zones among them, a crucial facet of planning for resiliency to climate change.
Yarrow first bought the property in the early 2000’s. At the time, she was living and working in Vancouver, where she was born and raised by her Japanese mother, her father, and her Japanese grandparents, who instilled in her the Japanese concept of Mottainai. Mottainai embodies the “waste not, want not” sentiment, living with a small impact on the planet. She spent her childhood and formative years growing up in a culture of people who were critical thinkers and artists, turning her concern for the environment into action by participating in logging protests on Vancouver Island and mainland BC. When she first visited the land on Gabriola, Yarrow recalls that she “had this feeling that I could take care of this place, and it needed a lot of care. There was something about the property I felt really connected to.”
Over the years she has watched the land and species come back to life on the property. “Nature does its thing. The land restored itself. The trees came back. The otters use the escarpment to have their babies.”
Placing the covenant was important to Yarrow to ensure that if she ends up having to sell the property in the future, the land and species are protected from development. “We are stewards of the land. It’s not owned property. We’re guests here, entrusted to this place for a really short period of time in the grand scheme of things and we’re responsible for making sure it’s around for generations to come.”
Yarrow credits the placing of the covenant to those who supported her throughout the process, including the Gabriola Land and Trails Trust, staff, and Board members at Islands Trust Conservancy. In the beginning, she thought that “only people who have a lot of money” can participate in this program, but with grant and financial support from GALTT and ITC, placing the covenant became possible. “I really couldn’t have done it without them. It was a really lovely collaboration.”
When asked about advice that she would give to landholders who are considering placing a covenant on their property, Yarrow shared that she would encourage putting the legal actions in place to keep land and species protected forever. “The process of placing a covenant was not hard or difficult. It’s not as difficult as people think it is. People come up to me saying, it’s so incredible what you’ve done, and all I’m saying is, I didn’t really do anything. It’s these other people, Gabriola Land and Trails Trust and Islands Trust Conservancy, who’ve done all the work. There’s so much support if you’re willing to start the process. All I had to do was send an email.”
Yarrow has a special place in her heart for this piece of land, and one species in particular that she often sees on her daily walks with her cat through the covenant. “We hang out on this hillside that gets sun at a particular time of day, and when I first purchased the property, the first species I saw there was an alligator lizard. I had never seen one before so I was totally infatuated with them. I thought they were the coolest thing ever.” She also loves the rough-skinned newts that live in the pond on the property.
In her spare time, you can find Yarrow outside, walking around the property, foraging, observing what’s happening in nature throughout the seasons, and spending time making art through print making, photography, weaving, and work with natural dyes and textiles.
Next spring at the Gabriola Museum, exhibits will be on display, designed and created by Yarrow through her work with the Gabriola Historical and Museum and Japanese Canadian Legacies Societies, that honour the history and stories of Japanese Canadians who lived on Gabriola Island until 1942 when they were forcibly removed from the Coast. This work was inspired by a recent trip that Yarrow took with her mother to Japan to visit her great grandparents’ graves. As she has been working on this project to shine a light on this important history, Yarrow learned that a small community of Japanese people were living in her neighbourhood until 1925 when the sawmill burned down. “I didn’t know when I bought the land that a Japanese-owned sawmill used to operate down the road. This property in particular is where they were working and logging.”
In the end, the choice to covenant the property, and help restore the forest and species that reside there, was not only an act of conservation, it was, as Yarrow shares, an act of “ancestral obligation.”
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Islands Trust Conservancy (ITC) is a conservation land trust dedicated to creating a network of protected areas on the islands in the Salish Sea. Since 1990, ITC has worked with island residents and communities to protect the places they care about. Through generous donations, ITC has protected 115 properties – 34 nature reserves and 81 conservation covenants totalling more than 1,385 hectares of land. We are committed to ensuring this unique region’s protection for generations to come.
Join us at: https://islandstrust.bc.ca/conservancy/how-you-can-help/. Learn more about placing a conservation covenant on the land you love at: https://islandstrust.bc.ca/conservancy/protect-nature/conservation-covenants/.
Learn more about the places we protect at: https://islandstrust.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/attachmentviewer/index.html?appid=eb7447641f72494e95b8fa030365b3b2.
This year, Islands Trust Conservancy is celebrating its 35th anniversary! Share your stories, favourite memories, and positive words about Islands Trust Conservancy for the Journal through the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ITC35th.
