Alberta family honours father with donation of parkland for conservation area

Nature lovers can look forward to exploring and hiking on 44 hectares of wilderness southwest of Edmonton thanks to a recent donation to the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

The land, near the Genesee Natural Area, is in a part of the province known as the aspen parkland boreal fringe, where Bill Greenhough hunted, farmed and advocated for conservation — passions that live on in his children.

"I guess we come by it naturally. So it's kind of his gift to us. And then we thought this would be just a tremendous way to honour the man," said Greenhough's son George, who grew up on the family farm nearby.

Bill Greenhough died in 2017 at the age of 87.

The property, not far from the North Saskatchewan River, was donated to the NCC by George and his wife Joni. It's now named the WJ (Bill) Greenhough Genesee Conservation Area.

"Now that the property is with the Nature Conservancy of Canada, I am confident that the land will be preserved in its natural state," George Greenhough said.

"I hope that people take advantage of the site to learn about the diversity of the boreal forest."

According to the Nature Conservancy of Canada, the recognized ecoregion is part of the most extensive boreal-grassland transition area in the world.

It's home to migratory birds, black bears, moose and whitetail deer, who live among groves of aspen, poplar and spruce, prairie grasslands, streams and river valleys, before the landscape transitions to the boreal forest in the north.

"This is an area that has undergone a lot of land-use change. So basically we're trying to keep intact habitat on the landscape," said Sean Feagan, Calgary-based spokesperson for the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

"Our primary goal is to build resilient landscapes by connecting networks of conserved lands."

The Nature Conservancy of Canada has been around since the 1960s. Within Alberta, it has worked to conserve more than 485,000 hectares of land through various mechanisms, including private land donations and partnerships with government.

For every project conserved, NCC secures 20 per cent of the land value for stewardship activities, relying heavily on fundraising and volunteers who care for the land in multiple ways including wildlife and insect inventory, weeding and beach clean-up.

The Genesee land transfer comes via Canada's Ecological Gifts Program, which offers significant tax benefits to landowners who donate ecologically sensitive land to a qualified recipient such as NCC.

The nature conservancy is now working on a management plan before the area opens to the public in about a year.