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British Columbia on the west coast of Canada has some of the most beautiful natural pristine land in the country. The coastline of Princess Louisa Inlet on the sunshine coast has been completely untouched and contains a fjord that forms picturesque waterfalls.
That's why when a private seller offered the land – that is 100 kilometers northeast of Vancouver for sale, Andrew Day, the founder and CEO of the B.C. Parks Foundation, a charity that works with the parks in British Columbia knew he had to save it from loggers and development.
"We knew that there had been a couple offers from forestry companies to buy that property and that's why we got involved in the first place," he told the CBC.
Day needed to raise the money fast, so he began a fundraising campaign to raise the $3 million that was needed for the purchase. This was the first-time crowdfunding was used to purchase a park.
The amount of money was raised just in the nick of time. But it wasn't just large donors that gave to the fundraising campaign, Day told the CBC that many ordinary Canadians donated to the effort.
"It was so many people who gave us $10 or $15 and said, 'This is all I can do, but this is a wonderful thing that you're doing,'" said Day.
The Foundation just bought the land and will bundle the 800 hectares property and add it to surrounding Crown land, parks, and land that was already set aside for conservation to create a 9,000-hectare park.
Day said that the foundation will work with the Sechelt Nation and the provisional government on the details of preserving the land. "We'll do our best to make sure that that area stays protected forever," he said.
This will hopefully not be the last time that crowdfunding is used to protect nature. For all the Canadians that donated, it was a job well done and an example for the rest of the world to follow
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