Wilton Land Conservation Trust Collaborates With CT & NY Organizations to Protect Water Reservoirs & Wildlife Habitats

An announcement from Highstead Foundation

REDDING, Conn. – A new inter-state collaboration of more than two dozen local and regional conservation organizations and municipal partners across southwestern Connecticut and Westchester and Putnam Counties in New York will engage landowners identified as pivotal in the battle to protect imperiled streams, drinking water reservoirs, and plant and wildlife habitat.

Funded by a two-year U.S. Forest Service grant, The Hudson to Housatonic Conservation Initiative (H2H) will be led by Highstead Foundation (on behalf of Fairfield County Regional Conservation Partnership), Westchester Land Trust, Mianus River Gorge, and Housatonic Valley Association.

“H2H is harnessing an extraordinary collective of resources present in the northeast conservation community,” said Virginia Gwynn, Executive Director of The Greenwich Land Trust. “By working together across town and state lines, we’ll be better able to inform landowners and communities about the larger landscape values of their properties, which contain critically important natural resources and sustain the people and wildlife of this region.”

Participating organizations and agencies will collaborate with landowners in 13 focus areas that straddle town or state lines and contain land with streams that drain into reservoirs or habitats that are likely to adapt to climate change in the future. Through conversations and activities with peers and specialists, landowners will learn about their land and gain a better understanding of their vital role in sustaining the critical natural resources that support people and wildlife.

“With the majority of forested land in the region held in small private lots, successful landowner engagement is key to creating the protected and connected wooded landscapes necessary to ensure clean drinking water and climate resilient habitats in the face of climate change and increasing development pressure,” said David Brant, Executive Director of the Aspetuck Land Trust, an H2H partner organization.

The activities funded by the H2H grant are designed to appeal to landowners eager to act, leading to both long- and short-term tangible conservation and stewardship gains. The partner organizations will evaluate the results and effectiveness of the outreach to gain insight about how to best meet the challenges of sustaining regional conservation resources going forward.

“The wooded landscapes of New England and New York have recovered over the last 150 years from an era of extensive agricultural expansion, and today we count on them to protect our water, clean our air, shelter wildlife, provide jobs and healthy recreation, and reduce the impacts of global warming,” according to Highstead Conservation Director, Emily Bateson. “But the seminal 2010 report, Wildlands and Woodlands: A Vision for the New England Landscape, documented that we are now losing those woods on a net annual basis to poorly planned development. H2H is a vital collaboration to help reverse that trend, and to sustain the natural landscapes that in turn sustain us – now and for future generations.”

This project is funded in part through a grant awarded by the U.S. Forest Service, Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry. H2H is part of the Landscape Scale Restoration Program of the U.S. Forest Service, Department of Agriculture. This institution is an equal opportunity provider.

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Highstead is a nonprofit organization that works to conserve the forested landscape of New England through science, sound stewardship, and collaboration with regional partners. http://www.highstead.net/

Fairfield County Regional Conservation Partnership (FCRCP) is a network where people representing organizations, businesses, and government agencies collaborate to protect, connect, and restore the natural landscape of Fairfield County. http://www.fcrcp.net/

Westchester Land Trust is a nonprofit organization that protects land in partnership with private property owners, helps communities create new parks and preserves, and fosters sound land use planning rules. http://www.westchesterlandtrust.org/

Mianus River Gorge is an independent, not-for-profit organization, whose mission is to preserve, protect, and promote appreciation of the natural heritage of the Mianus River watershed through land acquisition and conservation, scientific research, and public education throughout the region. http://www.mianus.org/

Housatonic Valley Association is a tri-state nonprofit citizen’s environmental group that works to conserve the natural character and environmental health of its communities by protecting and restoring the land and waters of the 2,000-square-mile Housatonic watershed from its source in the Pittsfield, Massachusetts area to Long Island Sound for this and future generations. http://www.hvatoday.org/

Partner organizations in Connecticut also include Aquarion Water Company, Aspetuck Land Trust, Bethel Land Trust, Brookfield Open Space Legacy, Inc., CT Dept. of Energy and Environmental Protection, Greenwich Land Trust, Newtown Forest Association, Norwalk River Watershed Association, Redding Land Trust, Stamford Land Conservation Trust, Town of Ridgefield Conservation Commission, Wilton Land Conservation Trust, and Yale University.