Be rare! Treasure a green gem.

Be rare! Protect a green gem in your community.

“Each town should have a park, or rather a primitive forest, of five hundred or a thousand acres, where a stick should never be cut for fuel, a common possession forever, for instruction and recreation.” Henry David Thoreau, 1859

Our vision at rare is to offer the community, and future generations, a collective greenspace, protected intact and in perpetuity. Inspired by the words of Thoreau, the Reserve’s stewards 913 acres on behalf of the public -- a common possession forever set aside to provide unprecedented opportunities in ecological and cultural research, education, and passive recreation -- for the community and as part of Canada’s contribution to stemming climate change.

Right now, rare has the almost unimaginable opportunity to add more than 90 acres to the Reserve, right up against Indian Woods -- some of the last remnant old-growth forest in Southern Ontario! The area also hosts the headwaters of Bauman Creek (a cold-water stream providing Brook Trout habitat), is part of a Provincially Significant Wetland and provides habitat for a variety of regionally significant birds. With your help, rare can purchase these lands, bringing the Reserve to over 1,000 acres -- and offer programs to ensure a healthy community.

At rare, you and your family and friends can take a guided walk, hear more than 60 speakers on a variety of topics each year, Eagle watch or prowl for owls, hike the trails -- and marvel at the beauty of the seasons, feeling “away from it all” even in our fast-growing community. Our community’s children are offered an Every Child Outdoors program: the lands provide an unequalled research site that, through a Chain of Learning, forms the basis of education programs in disciplines as diverse as restoration ecology, conservation biology, hydrology, organic farming, and archaeology, to name only a few.

Help us purchase these lands and provide a Chain of Learning that gets Every Child Outdoors, regardless of their background and location.

As well, these lands are a resource to the entire country. As a “downstream ecosystem,” rare is a case study for understanding the impact of a rapidly growing upstream urban population, and of intense agriculture and industry. Nationally, rare provides data that contributes to a growing body of knowledge. Already, Environment Canada has established multiple Ecological Monitoring plots at rare using key indicator species to measure the quality of habitats and our environment. Usually located in National and Provincial parks, these sites monitor long-term ecological change.

We hope that you will find rare to be a project worthy of support.

If we have your vote and we succeed in securing funds from the Aviva Community Fund, it will enable us to preserve and steward this Nature Reserve offering communities - from local to global - opportunities of passive leisure, trails, education, and research in ecology and archaeology.