Peter Warner said Saturday he was certain his late wife Esther was smiling as a crowd gathered to celebrate the couple’s gift of 22 hectares of land in Grand Bend to be maintained as a nature preserve.
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The land once known as Merrywood Farm is now the Warner Preserve, one of several sites owned and maintained by the Huron Tract Land Conservancy created in 2011 by the Ausable Bayfield Conservation Foundation to hold, conserve and protect natural areas for future generations.
The couple planted more than 10,000 native trees on the land they bought in 1988 from Eric and Ella McIlroy, owners of the former Lakeview Casino in Grand Bend.
Warner said he and Esther didn’t have children and it’s likely the land would have eventually ended up being developed for homes if they hadn’t donated it to the land trust.
“These trees would have been bulldozed down,” he said. “We loved the property.”
The Rotary Club of Grand Bend, which Warner is a charter member of, raised $55,000 for an arboretum on the preserve already planted with more than 70 species of trees, including some Carolinian species not often seen this far north.
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“For me, it’s a once in a career opportunity,” Ian Jean, a forester with the Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority, said about being able to work with the preserve.
Diverse soil types at the site have allowed a wide variety of trees, plants and wildlife to inhabit it, Jean said.
The Carolinian forest zone in southwestern Ontario, “is a very special part of Canada” with “40 per cent of all the biodiversity” in the county contained in about one per cent of its landmass, he said.
Maintaining that diversity is the aim of the preservation’s arboretum, Jean said.
The preserve’s land will be restored and protected, and used for educational activities and events but will only be open to the public by invitation, said Max Morden, chairperson of the land trust.
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“The land trust movement is really important in Canada and across the world right now,” Morden said. “It is becoming more and more necessary to protect natural habitat.”
The volunteer organization’s current properties total about 121 hectares and include the Mayhew Tract near Holmesville, the Bayfield River Flats Natural Area, Woodburne Farm near Goderich and the Heaman Tract near Ailsa Craig.
With the way land is now being developed, species “are losing their habitat bit by bit, inch by inch” and are “holding on by their fingertips,” Morden said.
“It’s really important if we’re to co-exist with nature to have these natural areas where nature can flourish and thrive,” he said.
“It’s a really unique property because it’s right in the heart of Grand Bend,” but at the same time “you’re in this beautiful natural oasis,” Morden said of the preserve. “This is a real lifeline for plants and wildlife that are endangered.”
He said the land trust was happy to help the Warner realize the dream he and his late wife had for the land.
“This is certainly a very special day,” Warner told the crowd. “From the bottom of my heart, thank you. And I’m sure Esther is smiling.”
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