Ontario landowners have a unique opportunity to conserve and protect a site designated as a World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO. Formed on the bedrock of an ancient sea over millions of years through erosion, the Niagara Escarpment is a prominent rock formation of exquisite beauty. This rare and sensitive ecosystem is found only inside the Great Lakes basin in North America.
The Niagara Escarpment is a continuous series of natural areas consisting of forests, meadows, marshes, rocky cliffs and shorelines, centered on a spectacular 440 million year old bed of an inland sea formed by the erosion of the Appalachian Mountains. The Escarpment is the edge of this sedimentary deposit and has a top layer of dolomite (hard limestone) that protects the softer layers below. The lower layers erode and leave a steep face.
The Escarpment is home to the most ancient and least disturbed forest ecosystem east of the Rocky Mountains, its cliffs protect ancient cedar forests, including 800-1700 year-old cedar trees and a wide diversity of plants and animals. Threatened or endangered species include Lady's Slipper Orchid, Massasauga Rattlesnake and Hart's Tongue Fern. It is under immediate threat by development on every side: housing, industry and resource extraction. Some recreational activities are also destroying its natural features. Our plan is to build a natural ecosystem corridor from Niagara, past Tobermory all the way to Michigan.
The Escarpment Biosphere Conservancy was established to preserve the landscape, ecology and wildlife of the Niagara Escarpment by developing and managing a system of nature reserves on which only ecologically sustainable recreational activities would be permitted. The EBC's mission has evolved over its eleven year history. First, we visualized an "ecological" corridor along Ontario's Escarpment. The concept of corridor has always included forests and rivers like the Saugeen which emanates from the Escarpment as well as a 30 km buffer.
Our original mission included Manitoulin's Escarpment, but expanded in 2000 to cover Manioutlin's shoreline and wetlands.
In 2002, we began acquiring land along the Bruce Peninsula's west shore, recognizing that the original study by Len Gertler recommended all of the Peninsula be protected by the Niagara Escarpment Plan. Our interest in the Huron shore extends south from the Bruce Peninsula to Goderich.
If you are intered in conservation in other areas, especially if another land trust does not have a history of protecting that region, call us.