Nature Trust Launches New Green Gift Idea: High-tech conservation protects forest by dedicating it to concerned individuals

A new partnership between conservation groups and the latest web technology is aiming to encourage many more people to invest in the future of our native forest. The Nature Trust of New Brunswick is the latest group to partner with Trees In Trust and use their web-based system to offer forest conservation as a gift, memorial or carbon offset.

With global warming, carbon footprints and personal environmental responsibility in the news so much, the timing couldn't be better to take forest conservation and make it available to everyone in such an attractive form. "Traditionally, land trusts have raised funds from conservation minded individuals locally or regionally" says Andrew Lush, founder of Trees In Trust. "What we are doing is providing the means for land trusts to raise funds from many more sources from around the world, including places where there are no remaining native woods”.

In exchange for a donation, Trees In Trust (www.treesintrust.com) provides a mapped piece of forest and a dedication certificate, all instantly via the web. "I spent $30 on a piece of woodland for my son's birthday" says Frank MacEachern of Charlottetown. "Once he saw where it was on a map, he was really intrigued". Your dedication is then placed against a specific plot of land and held in your name in perpetuity. The land trust uses the funds to steward the land and acquire additional acreage of similar quality.

Right now you can choose to dedicate a piece of forest near Saint John or St Andrews or in PEI. Trees In Trust aims to expand by partnering with land trusts in each province. This efficient fund-raising system allows land trusts to acquire more endangered forest and to concentrate on conservation and protection rather than spending time handling payments, producing maps and printing certificates. Charitable tax receipts are issued for dedications of 1/6 acre and above.

The Nature Trust of New Brunswick is a non-profit land trust headquartered in Fredericton. Over its twenty year history the Trust has protected twenty-six environmentally significant landscapes through private donations, conservation easements and leases. Officials with the group say the partnership with Trees in Trust offers a novel way for New Brunswick citizens to do their part to preserve wilderness.

If you would like more information, please see the website at www.treesintrust.com.

Please call Andrew Lush, founder of Trees In Trust, or Margo Sheppard, executive director of the Nature Trust of New Brunswick, if you have any questions.

Contacts:

* Andrew Lush, Trees In Trust
* Margo Sheppard, Nature Trust of NB