Thirty-six projects striving to help maintain or enhance environmental conditions and environmental education in and around their communities will be receiving a total of over $1 million in support from Columbia Basin Trust (CBT) through its Environmental Initiatives Program (EIP).
"These projects will have positive effects on the Basin environment through both direct action and education," said Sabrina Curtis, CBT director, sector initiatives, "helping reduce the impacts people have on our region's aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems."
One of the approved projects is the Kootenay Community Bat Project by Silverwing Ecological Consulting. A follow-up from previous success, the project involves continuing community-based bat inventories, visiting landowners who have bats in their buildings, providing educational programs and promoting bat houses.
It also involves engaging community members in collecting long-term monitoring data on bat populations at roost sites in buildings.
"The response to this project has been wonderful. We are so excited to be able to provide continued support to residents who have bats in buildings, while helping others to encourage bats to roost by building bat houses," said project biologist Juliet Craig. "CBT has been critical to our success."
One of the approved projects is Improving Mountain Caribou Calf Survival Through Maternity Penning. This is a community-led endeavour piloting a three- to five-year caribou penning recovery project in the Revelstoke region.
The grant supports year one of the project, which includes constructing a pen to temporarily hold ten pregnant female caribou from the Columbia North herd.
EIP provides support to community-initiated and -supported projects. It includes small grants geared at projects under $10,000 and large grants that, in the fall 2012 intake, funded projects up to $50,000. See the attached list of projects approved for funding.
The next large grants intake will take place in fall 2013. A small grants intake will be opening shortly; visit www.cbt.org/eip for details.
- To learn more about CBT's other environmental priorities, visit www.cbt.org/environment.