Ronald and Gail Caissie looked on Friday as the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) officially announced that it has acquired 141 acres of land near Abram-Village, some of which belonged to their family for generations.
The Caissies still live across the street from the land and are happy to know the current owner chose to sell to the NCC so the land could be protected for future generations.
“I’m OK with that,” said Ronald.
“It’s no good to anybody anyway, it’s a swamp – but I would never have liked to see somebody come along and (do something to it.”)
The NCC is a national not-for-profit organization that buys ecologically sensitive land from private owners to hold in trust for all Canadians.
The group has been targeting specific ecosystems on P.E.I., including salt marshes and Acadian forests, both of which are represented in the land announced Friday.
In total, there was 141 acres acquired in two parcels at the mouth of the Haldimand River, near the Acadian Supreme fish plant. The acquisition of the land cost $225,000.
The two plots join an adjacent third parcel purchased by the NCC more than a decade ago. NCC now owns a total of 170 acres along the river, which encompasses more than half of the salt marsh there.
The marshes provide habitat for a number of plant and animal species and played an important role in helping the first Acadian settlers in the area survive, said Julie Vasseur, P.E.I. program director with the NCC.
“We’ve been working for the past couple of years to protect these new properties.”
“It’s not very often that you find a river now in Prince Edward Island that has an almost entirely intact riparian buffer zone (trees lining the water), it hardly ever happens. So it really needs to be protected while we have it,” she added.
Other recent NCC acquisitions in Prince County include Holman’s Island off Summerside and large sections of the Conway sand hills.
Land owned by the NCC is open to the public for light recreational use, but fires, motorized vehicles and logging are all prohibited.
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