Credit Valley Conservation leads workshops for property owners

Written By ALYSSA PARKHILL

Credit Valley Conservation (CVC) hosted a ‘Caring for your Land and Water' workshop on Oct 19 at the Warwick Conservation Centre, for local property owners to attend and learn how to better their property in a natural and environmentally safe way. 

CVC stewardship specialists Karen Buckle and Shannon Lem ran the workshop for an intimate group of property owners in Caledon.

Guests registered beforehand, so, upon their arrival, CVC had packages ready for them, which included several maps of their property, highlighting whether or not their property is a part of the watershed, or the Green Belt. 

Each guest received a CVC Handbook for Countryside Living to help build an action plan in terms of location of property, and what residents need to do to properly tend to their land. 

“Basically, this workbook is the meat and potatoes of the workshop. There are workshops in here that on all-natural features could exist on a property within the Credit River watershed,” says Karen Buckle. “The idea is that a land owner would complete each worksheet that applied to their property. For example, if you don't have a wetland, stream or pond on your property, then you wouldn't do those specific workbooks.”

Residents fill out each worksheet, and each worksheet gives a score from one to four. At the end of the book, property owners are to fill out short-term and long-term action plans that will help them keep track of their progress. 

“Anything that you scored one or two on goes into an action plan at the back of the book. It's a little to-do list for yourself for the next five or 10 years that you can start nibbling away at. Having this action plan in place is enabling people to really concisely synthesize the information from the worksheets and really put that into action.”

She added, “Whether its short-term action or long-term action. Sometimes it might be nothing, but sometimes it might require a big project that we can help you with.”

According to the CVC website, “'This workshop is great for landowners who want to learn more about their properties. There are funding programs and other services available for land and water projects that many landowners don't know about,' said Lisa Brusse, Manager of Landowner Outreach at Credit Valley Conservation.”

For more information about the Credit Valley Conservation and their workshops please visit cvc.ca/