The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) and the Couchiching Conservancy announced today the successful completion of efforts to purchase a key piece of the globally important Carden Alvar.
The 551-hectare (1,362-acre) Cedarhurst Alvar property in the heart of the larger Carden Alvar, located 35 kilometres northeast of Orillia, is now protected for the long term.
The Cedarhurst Alvar property contains some of the most significant natural habitat in the province. Alvars, naturally open habitats with either a thin covering of soil, or no soil, over a base of limestone or dolostone bedrock, are extremely rare. They exist only in a handful of locations across the globe, including the eastern European Baltic region, the United Kingdom and Ireland. In North America, almost 75 per cent of alvars are in Ontario.
This new privately protected area provides Ontarians with $10 million in ecosystem goods and services annually, including carbon storage, the removal of air pollution and flood water storage. The property’s diverse habitats, including forests, wetlands and grasslands, act as sponges during spring run-off and major storms. By storing carbon and buffering local communities from the impacts of increasingly severe weather events, the property is an excellent example of the nature-based solutions needed to help combat climate change.
Home to many grassland birds listed under Canada’s Species at Risk Act, including grasshopper sparrow (special concern), bobolink (threatened) and eastern meadowlark (threatened), the Cedarhurst Alvar property adds to an existing network of conservation lands.
Its addition helps form a conservation corridor between Carden Alvar Provincial Park to the south and NCC- and partner-conserved lands extending north to Queen Elizabeth II Wildlands Provincial Park.