Groups dedicated to the environmental protection of the “Heart of Savary” have met a March 31 deadline for pledged donations.
“Yes we did it,” said Savary Island Land Trust executive director Liz Webster. “The conditions were removed in late March and the deal will close May 30.”
Savary Island Land Trust has led a 20-year effort to save the last remaining undeveloped section of the island, the most densely subdivided island in the Georgia Strait.
As of March 7, $2.5 million had been raised and another $1.5 million was needed in order to meet the $4 million purchase price for the land.
Fundraising efforts were helped by a group called Friends of Savary Island, which includes three prominent Vancouver businessmen and longtime seasonal residents of Savary.
One of the friends, John O’Neill, is more cautious of saying the deal is done because the money still has to be collected.
“Yes, we've been very successful in our campaign,” said O’Neill. “Now we're actually getting the pledges, getting the actual donations into the hands of the Nature Trust of British Columbia and then the trust can close on the land at the end of May.”
The Nature Trust will own the land, which includes one third of the tiny island that measures seven and a half kilometres long and 1.5 kilometres at its widest point.
The area is the last remaining undivided and undeveloped wilderness on Savary; the 350-acre middle third of the narrow, overgrown sandbar forms a saddle between the island’s two plateaus and encompasses both sides of the island with 12,000 feet of coastline and the north and south facing beaches.
O’Neill said it was a tremendous groundswell of community participation, including approximately 100 individuals and families on Savary, who pledged “to protect a pristine piece of British Columbia.
