Mary Lake: Grassroots Caring + Social Media = A Clever Campaign

We're all familiar with the parcels of land around the south island, and around the world, that need our assistance. From the Amazon rain forests to the Boreal forest in Northern Alberta, from Sandcut Beach on the Juan de Fuca West Coast to Madrona Farm, there's always an ecosystem or a parcel of land that needs saving. It can be difficult not only to choose which one to support, but also to get the word out to the wider world. Sometimes, however, a different twist is all that's needed to inject some new life into a campaign. Take for example the recently launched grassroots social media campaign to protect and save Mary Lake, in the Highlands District of Southern Vancouver Island.

The Mary Lake property, which includes the whole of the lake, is located on Millstream Road in the Highlands. The dry coastal Douglas fir forest, one of our south island's most threatened ecosystems, surrounds a pristine lake festooned with water lilies and lined with mossy rock outcrops, wetlands and trails. The 107 acre parcel is a prime example of native plant and animal life and is one of the last undeveloped lakes in the area.

So what makes this campaign special? For one: social media. Though the campaign has a website, organizers are using Twitter and Facebook to spread the word about the property. Retweets and Facebook "likes" get the word out, and drive people to the site, where a series of short videos on the property and a simple paypal donation system allow people to easily contribute.

Secondly, donations are given an interesting twist through the "purchase" of one or more square metres of land. You can get a square forest metre for $10; a square lakeside metre costs $40. Put your name to as many parcels as you like, and see the tangible results of your purchase on the interactive map created specially for the campaign. Giving people a bird's eye view of the protected portions (and watching that patchwork grow, daily) is a great way of showing the impact we can have through grassroots donations. Similar to micro-credit loans systems, this system uses a large number of people and a low donation threshold to create a big impact.

The campaign to save Mary Lake deserves the attention it's getting; it may also be the mark of a new generation of environmentally concerned citizens who want to see immediate tangible results for their contributions.