Eighty-six-year-old Bob McMinn has embarked on an unprecedented social networking campaign to save a Vancouver Island lake, and he's betting $100,000 of his own money on its success.
The senior, along with the Save Mary Lake conservancy, are selling one square-metre parcels of land of Victoria-area's Mary Lake online for the bargain basement price of $10 in an effort to raise $4.5 million to save it from being developed into housing.
As of press time they'd sold about 11,000 parcels on the lakeside lot – a far cry from the 400,000 needed to pay the hefty mortgage. But McMinn said he's confident the power of social networking will help them save the 107-acre parcel of parkland, a lush acreage complete with soaring Douglas Firs and shores of lichen covered rocks.
"I'm hoping the campaign goes viral online and we can get in touch with a whole lot of people," McMinn told ctvbc.ca in a telephone interview from his Highlands home.
"We won't do quite as well as Obama did with 500 million people, but we're hoping we can sell out."
Since its launch four days ago, the campaign is selling upwards of 200 square-metres a day to donors, or "metre mates," from as far away as the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia.
Living in Highlands for the last 56 years, and being the original mayor of the district, McMinn said he was tired of watching as parcel after parcel of wilderness around him was gobbled up by developers and turned into suburban housing.
He grew so enamored with the Mary Lake land, a pristine wilderness of untouched Dry Coastal Douglas Fir ecosystem, that he knew he had to take action.
"I thought ‘we can't just let this slip through our fingers – it's much too nice a piece of land,'" he said. "It's a key piece both for its intrinsic values and its particular location."
The land, which serves as an important wildlife corridor and contiguous natural link between Thetis Lake and Gowlland Tod Parks, is also a rare habitat for several endangered species.
But the time is running out to save Mary Lake.
The conservancy must raise $1 million in donor funds by January 2011 to allow bridge financing, and then another $3.5 million to buy it outright. McMinn put up $100,000 of his savings as a down payment, a move he insists was to show that the society means business.
"I was dedicated, and I was desperate. Giving up a big chunk of change is the only option," he said.
Donors can pick their parcel of land from a satellite map, where they can stamp their name onto a square-metre of forest. A mere $40 buys a square-metre of lake or lakeshore, while $1,000 buys a prime piece of island.
If the goal is reached, the conservancy hopes Mary Lake will become a destination for hikers and nature lovers, and people will be able to view nature "the way it was intended."
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