The environmental group Eden Mills is being closed down after 33 years

EDEN MILLS – Although it has been several months since the Eden Mills Eramosa River Conservation Association formally dissolved, former members said their mission lives on in the community.

The Eden Mills Eramosa River Conservation Association (EMERCA), a local charity that has been committed to maintaining the health of the river ecosystem and public nature reserves in Eden Mills for 33 years, held its final general meeting last summer after members agreed were that they had achieved the core objectives and there was no interest in refocusing its mission.

The group had four core goals: to represent the community’s commitment to the health of the wetlands ecosystem in the Eramosa River Valley, to provide environmental education opportunities, to provide publicly accessible natural areas for the community, and to maintain , manage and monitor the dam at the former mill pond.

“The proof is in the pudding… I’m still doing this. I’m still giving presentations. We’re just as active as we were before,” said the group’s former president, Marilyn Baxter, an environmentalist who moved to the United States. community in 2013. “We paved the way by letting someone else take care of the land forever, so we could gracefully bow out.”

Founded in 1991, the organization began contracting a lease for Charles Simon, a local architect and pioneer of sustainable building design, who wanted the 12.8 hectares on the West Branch of the Eramosa River, now Simon’s Lookout mentioned, would be publicly accessible, but that was not possible. I can’t afford liability insurance.

However, when the group was approached about purchasing the land a few years ago, Baxter said the feeling around the table was “we’re getting old, this has been hanging over our heads for 30 years (and) we don’t want that.” to own.”

Transferring the land to the rare Charitable Research Reserve in June 2023, the group then distributed the remaining funds to four charities; rare, Ontario Nature, Nature Guelph and the Eden Mills and District Community Club.

“(Rare engagement) had been in the back of our minds for a long time… because in 1990, rare didn’t exist,” Baxter says. “The landowner leased the land to us (because) he thought we would buy it from him so it would be in public hands forever and for nature, which was the purpose.”

According to Baxter, most of the group’s nearly two dozen members and other community leaders were supportive but sad about the closure, while those who said they were “very disappointed” were unwilling to step up to the plate.

“Because Rare took over the two properties we were managing, we didn’t have to do this anymore,” Baxter said. “We can do (two of our core goals) without our organization. It happens in Eden Mills, whether you have an official title or not.”

A sign was recently posted at Simon’s Lookout crediting the vision of “a group of Eden Mills residents” and “other community and conservation-oriented individuals and organizations” with protecting the land.

Several Earth Day events, such as the village cleanup, are planned this weekend and throughout the month of May at Eden Mills, in addition to the Eden Mills Spring Festival on May 25.

Isabel Buckmaster is the Local Journalism Initiative reporter for GuelphToday. LJI is a federally funded program.

Isabel Buckmaster, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, GuelphToday.com