October 12, 2022 - Introducing Moss Mountain covenant - one of Salt Spring Island's newest protected areas

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Protecting Islands in the Salish Sea 
   
 
 
News Release  
200-1627 Fort Street, Victoria, B.C., V8R 1H8 
Telephone: 250-405-5183; Fax: 250-405-5155 
itcmail@islandstrust.bc.ca     www.islandstrust.bc.ca/conservancy 
October 12, 2022.   
 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 
  
Introducing Moss Mountain covenant - one of Salt Spring Island’s newest protected areas  
 
Lək
̓
 ʷəŋən, METULIYE/Victoria, B.C.    Islands Trust Conservancy celebrates the protection of nearly 50 hectares of 
land (112 acres) on Salt Spring Island thanks to the placing of a conservation covenant by islander Gay Young. This new 
protected area protects a critical wildlife corridor between Salt Spring Island and Vancouver Island.   
 
Salt Spring Island resident Gay Young has worked with Islands Trust Conservancy to place a conservation covenant that 
protects 45.4 ha (112.2 acres – approximately the size of 10 BC Place Stadiums) of private land along Sansum Narrows 
– a critical wildlife corridor between Stoney Hill Regional Park on Vancouver Island, and Burgoyne Bay Provincial Park 
and Mill Farm Regional Park Reserve on Salt Spring Island. Young placed the conservation covenant on this property to 
ensure it would be protected in perpetuity.   
 
The land is protected through the Natural Area Protection Tax Exemption Program (NAPTEP), a program unique to 
Islands Trust. For qualifying properties, NAPTEP provides landowners with a 65% property tax reduction for the portion 
of the property protected by a conservation covenant.  
 
“Given the current climate crisis it seemed like a great way to contribute,” says Gay Young. “It was a family decision 
between me and my three grown-up children. We felt the land needed to be protected forever.” When asked what 
they wanted to protect most she answered – the trees. “We had 112 acres of mature trees. I don’t want them to be 
destroyed – they are so important and do a great service for us as carbon sinks. It was our job to protect them.’  
 
The Moss Mountain covenant contains a range of ecosystems including mature forests, seasonal creeks, wetlands, 
mossy bluffs, prairie oak and arbutus woodlands, and rocky shoreline. It protects three documented species at risk of 
extinction (two birds, one bat), and nine provincially listed ecosystems - including the federally endangered Little 
Brown Bat, which was detected during summer bat surveys in 2021.  
 
“Conserving land is a direct action individuals can take to prevent biodiversity loss and increase islands’ resiliency to 
climate change,” says Kate-Louise Stamford, Chair, Islands Trust Conservancy Board.  
 
More than 65% of land on islands in the Salish Sea is privately owned – meaning that individual landowners’ 
voluntary conservation actions are critical to protecting biodiversity and addressing impacts from climate change in 
the region.  Conservation covenants provide many benefits to island communities and can be used to conserve areas 
of natural and cultural significance. Forest

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