Qualifying Organizations for Ecological Gifts in Canada

On Sunday, I wrote about the tax advantages of making gifts of ecologically sensitive land to certain organizations. I followed this post with one discussing how to find out if your land may qualify as ecologically sensitive land in order to take advantage of the tax advantages.

The next question is what organizations qualify under the ecological gifts program?

You may give your land to the Government of Canada, to the government of any province or territory, or to any municipal government under the Ecological Gifts Program. You may also give the property to a number of other organizations that have been approved by the federal government. Most of the approved organizations are land trusts, incorporated for the purpose of conservation.

If you are interested in donating land to a land trust or other approved organization, you can check the listing of approved organizations here.

You will notice that some of the organizations are national or provincial in scope, while others are local. For example the Central Okanagan Land Trust holds ecologically sensitive land here in Kelowna and the Central Okanagan Regional District.