By far the largest covenanted area protected by TLC in Victoria, the Sooke Hills comprises over 1,300 hectares of wilderness area. Purchased with public donations and contributions from all levels of government, the Sea to Sea Green/Blue Belt extends from Gowlland Tod Provincial Park in the Highlands, down through Goldstream Park and across the Sooke Hills to Ayum Creek Regional Park in Sooke. Five properties making up the Sooke Hills covenants were protected from 2001 to 2005, purchased from logging companies and transferred to the Capital Regional District. These areas provide a continuous wilderness buffer and wildlife refuge compared to urban patch-like park areas. Popular with back country hikers and campers, these covenants ensure that the properties are managed by the CRD as parks and will not be subdivided or sold at some future date. The covenant monitoring team spent an afternoon hiking the Sooke Hills, starting from the Sooke Potholes Provincial Park and reaching Grasse Lake, looking for anything that might be of concern and to confirm the ecological findings of previous studies of the area.
If you would like to support the TLC monitoring program that protects over 230 sites throughout BC with covenants, please donate today.
