Dear SILT Supporter,

If you're looking to lighten your income tax load for the past year, December is such a wonderful time to consider making charitable donations. In addition to benefiting from potential tax deductions, your contribution to the Southern Interior Land Trust plays a meaningful role in addressing the urgent issues of global biodiversity loss and the impacts of climate change. Together, we can make a positive difference!

It’s also the perfect time of year to consider giving a gift to SILT in the name of a loved one, as a very thoughtful and unique gift to that person. We will issue a card thanking the named loved one on your behalf for the donation to land conservation for wildlife.

In future, SILT intends to launch a yearly fund-raising drive to help raise the money needed to continue to do the work we do day-by-day to conserve and restore natural habitats for wildlife and other living things.

You could be one of the first to help us achieve that objective. Up to now, SILT has launched fund-raising drives only toward the purchase of specific lands, but there are daily costs to planning, researching and maintaining such land purchases as well.

Please consider a monthly or an annual donation to SILT. For more details of our work and how you can help out, go to our website at: siltrust.ca or click on the Donate button below.

Welcome New Board Members

KERRY ROUCK__________MELODIE LIND

At last fall’s annual general meeting, SILT welcomed two new members to the board:

Kerry Rouck is a Registered Professional Forester who retired from the position of Chief Forester with the Gorman Group in March, 2024, after 34 years with the company. He has a deep respect for indigenous knowledge and understanding its role in land management, as well as relating to local interests and values of those who are on the land.

Post-retirement, he is now focussed on working in forest/grassland transition areas and in his free time, he and his wife enjoy all that the outdoors has to offer.

Mel Lind is a partner with Pushor, Mitchell, LLP, lawyers in Kelowna, and practices in the area of tax law, with a focus on estate and trust planning, family-owned succession planning, planning for persons with disabilities and tax-driven corporate re-organizations. She also has a BA in Psychology and Criminology from SFU and has completed advanced training in specific areas of law. She was raised in West Kelowna and enjoys the region’s many outdoors activities with her family.

SILT thanks outgoing board members David Pogge, Elise Everest and Danielle Chapman.

Bourguiba Spring Monitoring Project Underway

Since SILT purchased the 17-hectare Bourguiba Spring hillside grassland in 2022, efforts have been underway to document the assets included on the South Okanagan property, located on the lower slopes of Anarchist Mountain.



Last season, as a project in conjunction with University of Guelph, local biologist Jason Jones and his firm, Ecologic Consulting Ltd. conducted a number of monitoring programs to assess the population of bats, birds, insects and other natural features on the property. The results have yet to be collated and summarized, but there are some surprises. Watch for details in the coming year.

nʔaʕx̌ ʷt Ginty’s Pond Wetland Restoration

In collaboration with SILT’s partners, the Lower Similkameen Indian Band, BC Wildlife Federation, and the BC Ministry of Water, Land & Resource Stewardship, Phase 2 construction activities to restore the wetland are now complete, and soils placed have been seeded with a 1^st application cover crop of fall rye, and planted with a well-distributed arrangement of 2,206 native trees and shrubs. About 200 cottonwood and red-osier dogwood live stakes were also planted on both sides of the wetland. The Phase 2 work area is 1.7 hectares, of which 1.0 hectare is wetland restoration/open water, and 0.7 hectares is creation of new riparian woodland-shrub thicket habitats (on the placed soils). The work area includes placement of more than 100 pieces of large woody debris and large boulders to add habitat complexity.

Photo Credits:

Robin Annschild

Al Peatt

Dianne Bearsea

SILT thanks the many volunteers, local businesses, and other donors supporting this project, and also, the funders, BC Watershed Security Fund, BCWF, and the BC Together For Wildlife Fund.

SILT would like to wish you all a peaceful season of celebration, filled with the joy of special times with friends and family and the satisfaction felt with giving.

We hope that 2025 will bring you a year of great surprises and new adventures in the beautiful outdoors of this province.