Central Okanagan Land Trust
Presidents Report
August 31, 2009

Board of Directors:

President Barry Jones                              Directors Hugh Westheuser
Vice President Don Knox                                           Gwynneth Wilson 
Recording Secretary Judie Steeves                           Kurt Zander
Corresponding Secretary Frank Williams
Treasurer Gary Reese
Regional Dist. Rep. Wayne Darlington 


Administrative Projects:
During this past year, Central Okanagan Land Trust (COLT) has completed several projects that facilitate its day-to-day function. One was to formally accept the Standards and Practices recommended by the Canadian Land Trust Alliance with the intention of further refining them to suit COLT's local situation. A new interactive display was created for use at various community events. The COLT brochure was reworked and a Mission Statement was agreed on and which states: The purpose of the Central Okanagan Land Trust is to protect land for wildlife and parks so bio-diversity and natural features are preserved for future generations.

Environmental Community links:
Past-president Hugh Westheuser has been appointed a Director of the Land Trust Alliance of British Columbia. His involvement with environmental issues on a provincial scale brings perspective to COLT's local Concerns. Kurt Zander has agreed to be our representative on the Okanagan Collaborative Conservation Project, a liaison which will also allow COLT to be aware of a wider environmental context in which to consider our local interests. We continue to have a strong relationship with the Regional District of the Central Okanagan through its current representative at our meetings, Wayne Darlington. We have also had discussion throughout the year with representatives of the City of Kelowna and the new municipality of West Kelowna.

Properties:
This year we have begun an association with Prof. Ellen Pederson of the Biology Dept. at Okanagan College. She and her students have carried out several environmental inventories of COLT properties. These are essential to the proper stewardship of our properties and we hope that this new association will continue and develop.

COLT paid for the creation and installation of information panels on the Thomson Marsh Conservation Area in the Mission.

We are currently involved with a number of other landowners in the region. At times our involvement is simply to provide information to landowners who may be interested in having COLT accept property or hold covenants. In other cases, COLT is involved in stewardship issues and supports these financially. Usually in these cases, we work together with the Regional District or the City of Kelowna. There are other properties that COLT considers to be highly valuable from an ecological point of view whose current owners we have approached with information about COLT. It is hoped that by these initiatives we may be able to influence the eventual disposition of these currently undeveloped ecologically sensitive lands.
Carbon accounting and carbon credits are topics of great interest to the Land Trust, as they are to the 
the wider environmental movement. These subjects are important in the context of Climate Change strategies and have the potential to make funds available to further the aims of conservation and preservation societies such as COLT. The discussions are just in their early stages but COLT intends to stay abreast of the evolving understanding and implementation of such initiatives.

Respectfully submitted,


Barry Jones