This was something some groups I met with pointed to, both the Great Bear rainforest and the Nahanni National Park reserve, that if you wanted to show you were serious about the environment, here would be two quick actions you could take, and we delivered on both.
Why I'm so big on it is not just the great conservation move, but it's $30 million from the federal government. We're leveraging $30 million from the province that's been sitting there for two years, and they raised $60 million, much of it from the United States. People felt so strongly and passionately about protecting this great area of our country that they were putting up their own money.
I'm very big on leveraging additional resources, and that's why in a plan with the Nature Conservancy of Canada we put up $220 million. They have to match that. We made an announcement in Essex recently where $1.4 million is leveraging almost $7 million, between the conservation authority, the local community, the province, and the federal government. So we're able to go a lot farther a lot faster, which is a good use of dollars.
The exciting thing about conservation is, people are passionate about it in this country and they're prepared to make charitable contributions in this regard. We saw some of the tax changes that were made by the Minister of Finance, which have helped assist this. We want to encourage more of this for people to understand that they have a stake in our environment and that government has an important role to provide leadership. But we've got to see real action on the ground from Canadians, and we're seeing it.