December 19, 2025 – PWEP December Newsletter / A Message of Gratitude
- pwepreserve
- Jan 1
- 3 min read
Friends,
It’s been an eventful year! We were able to make a great deal of progress and celebrate several big wins along the way, including the successful first hearing in the ongoing judicial review PWEP launched against the Tidman development. The court granted PWEP standing, allowing us to continue to oppose this development. We also kept the Sundance development at bay, and advocated for environmentally responsible Land Use. We had the pleasure of welcoming the Ontario Farmland Trust to the Bourgeois Farm, and we renewed our partnership with the Small Change Fund, allowing us to fundraise for the Tidman fight through the SCF’s online crowdfunding platform and issue charitable tax receipts on all donations.
In 2026 we plan to continue the good work, and will keep you posted every step of the way. We are especially excited to launch PWEP's Water Quality Monitoring and Restoration Program for the Little Sauble River. Our new Water Protection page will be up on the PWEP website soon, and there will be many ways to get involved, so stay tuned!
We will continue our judicial review against the Tidman development, and expect the second (and final) hearing to be scheduled for the spring. We will do a tad more fundraising as the date approaches, but if you can contribute in the meantime, please donate here.
You’ll also be hearing from us regarding the ongoing Bruce County Official Plan review, which is entering its final stage. There will be an Open House and statutory Public Meeting hosted by the County in the spring, exact dates TBD. Together we will ensure that the community’s concerns regarding Land Use in Inverhuron are heard and acted upon.
But as the year draws to a close, more than anything we want to thank you, all of you, for your stellar, unwavering, indispensable support. Without you we'd never have come this far. And it's not just the generous donations – it's also the many kind messages, the encouraging emails, the positive words and actions that speak of care and trust. All of this we appreciate more than we can express, and it motivates us more than ever to continue doing all we can to protect Inverhuron going forward. Thank you!
We'd like to take this opportunity to remember Ann and Eugene Bourgeois, who both died five years ago now, in 2020. Ann and Eugene bequeathed PWEP to the community, and many of you knew and loved them as friends. Amongst so many other things they were implacable environmental activists, and the fact that PWEP is flourishing is due in no small measure to the seeds sown in typically modest yet effective fashion by these two extraordinary people. Their example continues to guide and inspire us.
In closing, a brief year-end reflection to take stock and consider the wider perspective. Why do we do this work? Why do we seek to protect little Inverhuron when the truth of the big picture is that the world is on the brink of climate catastrophe? Because we love this place and all that lives here. Because we believe that each positive action, however small in the greater scheme of things, is meaningful. Because taking responsibility is much more effective than giving in to complacency or despair. And because we believe that stewardship on a local level, rooted in the community’s deep knowledge of and love for the natural environment it inhabits, is the best way to build toward a healthier whole: Step by step, field by field, forest by forest, river by river, shore by shore. Connection by human connection.
As has become tradition, we leave you with a brief quote from Braiding Sweetgrass, by Dr. Robin Wall-Kimmerer, below.
Wishing you all the best of the season, and a good start into the New Year.
In gratitude,
The Team @PWEP
The Philosopher’s Wool Environmental Preserve
2 Alma Street
Tiverton, ON
Respectfully acknowledging that we live, work and benefit from the Lands and Waters of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation.
"It is not just changes in policies that we need, but also changes to the heart. Scarcity and plenty are as much qualities of the mind and spirit as they are of the economy. Gratitude plants the seed for abundance. [...] A deep awareness of the earth and of each other is medicine. [...] Gratitude for all the earth has given us lends us courage [...] to demand an economy that is aligned with life, not stacked against it." (Braiding Sweetgrass, p. 366-67)
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