Forests are vital to our ecosystems and to ourselves. That means preserving them, especially as they increasingly fall victim to both deforestation and catastrophic fires. So when the residents of this Quebec neighborhood learned of developers’ plans to destroy the forest next to their home, they took action!In August 2020, the forest in Chelsea, Quebec, Canada, was put up for sale. The idea was to sell it to a developer and turn it into a residential neighborhood “with about thirty individual homes,” according to Le Journal de Montréal.
But the neighbors, who loved to walk and enjoy this protected area, did not let that happen! The 185 neighbors mobilized themselves by going door to door, distributing flyers, holding meetings, whatever they could. After the sale, they began mobilizing citizens and managed to raise 850,000 Canadian dollars, or about 680,000 euros. That was enough to buy back 23 hectares of forest land and preserve the ecosystem.
Lin Daigle, a spokesman for the neighbourhood movement, said: “The epidemic made neighborhood residents realize the value of spending time in green spaces nearby.They were able to put forward a viable buyout proposal that competed with the developers’ proposals. On March 15, 2021, accompanied by Action Chelsea pour le Respect de l’Environnement, 185 neighbors signed a buyout agreement.