A Year to Celebrate

/ Countryside Stewardship Mail / Caring for Your Land and Water, Green Your Property, Landowner Action Fund, Rural Landowners, Rural Water Quality Program /
Group of people standing outdoors

Happy New Year everyone. As we transition into a new year, it’s a time to reflect on how far we’ve come and celebrate our wins.

We have a lot to celebrate! 2024 is Credit Valley Conservation’s (CVC) 70th anniversary and marks two significant milestones for rural landowners working with CVC: the 10-year anniversary of the Landowner Action Fund (LAF) program and the 20-year anniversary of the Peel Rural Water Quality Program (PRWQP).

The programs encourage environmental stewardship on private lands by providing grants to rural landowners and farmers for projects such as tree planting, nutrient management, and wetland and stream restoration. By combining grants with the landowner’s contribution and other municipal, provincial and federal funding programs, we improve water quality, enhance wildlife habitat, and build resilience to climate change together.

Man and woman standing outside on their property that is filled with a forest
Over the last decade, Wendy Walgate and Duncan Glaholt have used LAF to plant 12,500 trees, improve 400 meters of stream and restore over 70 per cent of their property.

The Landowner Action Fund:
Since 2014, the LAF has supported 284 landowner projects and awarded $317,000 in grants for environmental stewardship projects on rural residential, corporate and institutional lands. This funding has contributed to nearly 400 hectares of environmental improvements and 34 well and septic projects to protect drinking water sources. Through the program, landowners are undertaking a variety of projects from installing nesting boxes, planting trees, restoring streams and upgrading their wells.  

A bunch of cows in the outdoors
Protecting our groundwater from runoff, such as livestock manure, is a main goal of the Peel Rural Water Quality Program.

The Peel Rural Water Quality Program:
Since 2004, the PRWQP has helped farmers complete 236 projects and awarded almost 1.5 million dollars in grants. This funding has contributed to 449 hectares of environmental improvements and hundreds of actions that safeguard shared water resources. This includes safely storing over 402,634 cubic meters of livestock manure to reduce the risk of nutrients, pathogens and bacteria containing drinking water, streams and wetlands. This is equal to 50,330 dump trucks of manure! 

Examples of projects that PRWQP funds:

  • Groundwater and surface water protection projects (manure and chemical storage, well upgrades, nutrient management)
  • Soil management projects (erosion control, cover crops)
  • Tree planting
  • Native grassland restoration
  • Cover crops

Learn more about these incentive programs:
Landowner Action Fund Program Guide
Peel Rural Water Quality Program

Connect with us at [email protected] to get started on a project of your own!

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