Lands Protected by Dennis Conservation Trust

The Dennis Conservation Trust, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, has a neat table on its website detailing all of the acreage it has protected from its founding in 1988 through 2006. With 69 transactions comprising a total of 468.5 acres, here’s another way of looking at the table:

Acreage

Upland – 136.7 acres (29.1%)
Wetland – 327.22 acres (69.8%)

More than 25 acres – 3 transactions (4.3%)
10 to 25 acres – 4 transactions (5.7%)
1 to 10 acres – 32 transactions (46.3%)
Less than 1 acre – 27 transactions (39.1%)
Not specified – 2 transactions (2.8%)

Acquisition Type

Gift – 51 transactions (73.9%)
Gift, Purchase – 12 transactions (17.3%)
Conservation Restriction – 5 transactions (7.2%)
Purchase – 1 transaction (1.4%)

The largest parcel preserved by the Dennis Conservation Trust: a 205-acre tract of salt marsh donated in 1994.

The Trust's 2008 Annual Auction is scheduled for July 20, 2008, at the Dennis town green. For details, or to learn more about what the Dennis Conservation Trust has accomplished over the past 20 years, please read the Trust's Summer 2008 Newsletter.

Community Preservation Coalition’s Newsletter for June/July 2008

The June/July 2008 newsletter of the Community Preservation Coalition of Massachusetts has been published.

Contents include “Additional Funding for CPA Open Space and Recreation Projects,” which mentions state LAND and PARC grant programs, the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund Program, the state Conservation Partnership Program, and the state Drinking Water Supply Protection Grant Program.

Summer Newsletter of the Association to Preserve Cape Cod

The Association to Preserve Cape Cod (APCC) has published the Summer 2008 issue of its newsletter, Shore Lines. Contents include:

•  APCC celebrates 40 years of environmental advocacy
•  Nominate a Cape Environmental Champion
•  Cape Cod Bay No Discharge Area designation
•  Protection of Truro campground in National Seashore
•  Environmental efforts in Eastham and Mashpee
•  Farming on Cape Cod endangered

Founded in 1968 by Dr. Herbert E. Whitlock, the Association to Preserve Cape Cod is “Cape Cod's leading environmental educator, advocate and watchdog organization."

Vineyard Conservation Society’s Conservation Almanac for June 9th – June 15th

The June 9-15, 2008, issue of the Vineyard Conservation Society’s Conservation Almanac, a weekly newsletter, has been published on the Society’s website. Unique and highly informative about issues and activities on Martha's Vineyard, the newsletter is well worth reading.

Founded in 1965, the Vineyard Conservation Society was recently awarded an $18,750 grant from the Massachusetts Environmental Trust “to create a public education campaign regarding water quality deterioration caused by nitrogen contamination from septic systems and cesspools.”

Vineyard Conservation Society’s Conservation Almanac for June 2nd - June 8th

The June 2–8, 2008, issue of the Vineyard Conservation Society’s Conservation Almanac, a weekly newsletter, is available on the Society’s website. Unique and highly informative about issues and activities on Martha's Vineyard, the newsletter is well worth reading.

Founded in 1965, the Vineyard Conservation Society is “proactively involved in preserving land, defending the Island from unwise development, and educating the public on environmental issues.”

Conservation Across the Commonwealth: The Spring/Summer 2008 Issue

The Spring/Summer 2008 issue of Conservation Across the Commonwealth, a newsletter of The Nature Conservancy, has been published and is available as a pdf. The feature article is “The Nature of Change: Finding Climate Solutions Through Conservation.”

The hardcopy of the newsletter is “Printed on 30% post-consumer-waste, elemental chlorine-free recycled paper, creating the following environmental benefits: 9.41 trees not cut down; 27.17 gallons of water saved; 3,997 gallons waste flow saved; 442 pounds of solid waste not generated; 871 pounds of greenhouse gases prevented; 6,665,488 BTUs of energy not consumed."

Spring 2008 Newsletter of the New England Grassroots Environment Fund

The Spring 2008 newsletter of the New England Grassroots Environment Fund has been released. Among other interesting items, Meetinghouse Farm in West Barnstable, a 23-acre conservation area with a 3,000 square foot greenhouse, was awarded a $1,500 grant to fund the conversion of a portion of its greenhouse to usable space for meetings, classes and lectures.

Created in 1996, the New England Grassroots Environment Fund’s mission is “to energize and nurture long-term civic engagement in local initiatives that create and maintain healthy, just, safe and environmentally sustainable communities.” Over the course of its life, the Fund has distributed more than $2.5 million in grants. Past grantees include the Dennis Conservation Trust and the Orenda Wildlife Land Trust.

The Shifting Sands of Chatham

"Shifting Sands: Strong Forces Confront Our Coastlines"
Special Places, Spring 2008
By Peter H. Taylor

As far back as I can remember I have enjoyed watching huge, storm-driven waves bash the coastline. There’s something thrilling and beautiful about mountains of ocean water hitting sand and rock. Slower-paced forces of coastal change, such as tides, currents, and seasonal shifts in sea life, are just as exciting. The meeting of land and sea is defined by ceaseless change, and that’s what makes coastal ecology and oceanography so interesting to me. ... ©

Read the full article in Special Places, a quarterly publication for members and supporters of The Trustees of Reservations.

Public Grants for Land Trusts

“Grants, RFPs & Commonwealth Capital,” the Massachusetts Land Trust Coalition’s E-News issue of May 13, 2008, focuses on several state conservation grant opportunities for nonprofit land trusts:

•  Conservation Partnership Grants, with application assistance from
    Fields Pond Foundation and The Trustees of Reservations

•  LAND Grants Program (formerly Self-Help Program)

•  PARC Grants Program (formerly Urban Self-Help Program)

•  Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program

For details and additional information, or to learn about the state's Commonwealth Capital (CommCap) initiative, please read the Massachusetts Land Trust Coalition's E-News.

Barnstable Land Trust Faces June Deadline to Raise Funds for Baker Property

With the town of Barnstable recently approving $100,000 in Community Preservation Act funds for the cause, the Barnstable Land Trust must still raise $23,000 by June 17, 2008, in order to preserve the five-acre Baker Property along Little River in Cotuit.

According to BLT's website, the Baker Property is significant because it "preserves water quality of the adjacent Cotuit well fields; connects with 800 acres of protected open space; enhances the waters of the Little River, which feeds freshwater to the Cotuit Bay; completes the acquisition of vacant land along the Little River, a major corridor in Barnstable’s Open Space Plan; and protects varied wildlife habitat."

For more information about the project and the fund raising effort, please visit BLT's website or read the Spring 2008 issue of its newsletter, Resources.

Community Preservation Coalition’s Newsletter for May 2008

The May 2008 newsletter of the Community Preservation Coalition has been published. Contents include ‘Making Your CPA Dollars Go Further,” which details the acquisition and restoration of the Vanderhoop Homestead and six surrounding acres in Aquinnah on Martha’s Vineyard. The property was purchased by the Town and the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank in a deal that involved Community Preservation Act funds.

Coalition for Buzzards Bay Posts Annual Report

The Coalition for Buzzards Bay, which released its 2007 Annual Report at its 20th Annual Meeting on April 3, 2008, has posted the report on its website.

At nearly 25 pages, this attractive report details the Coalition’s efforts at baykeeper advocacy, bay monitoring, land conservation, and education & outreach. Also, it contains the treasurer’s report, with revenue of $5.9 million, and a list of donors.

The Coalition’s website also has Saving Buzzards Bay Lands: Campaign Final Report 2001-2006, as well as other reports and newsletters.

CNN Notes Loring Tract on Nantucket

In featuring Nantucket, CNN International’s Travel & Leisure April 2008 mentions the 270-acre tract of land that was at the center of a $14 million conservation restriction agreement penned in 2007 between landowner Linda Loring and the Nantucket Land Council:

“And Nantucket social fixture Linda Loring turned over 270 acres of her property -- the largest remaining privately owned, unprotected tract -- to the Nantucket Land Council; they're now part of more than 13,000 acres (40 percent of the island) designated as conserved land, most of which is open to the public.”

For a detailed account of the transaction, Ms. Loring’s preservation efforts, and future plans for the protected tract, see the newspaper article “Land Council Seals Deal Keeping 270-Acre Loring Property Forever Wild,” which appeared in Nantucket’s The Inquirer and Mirror in 2007, and the Winter 2007 and Summer 2007 issues of The NLC News, the Nantucket Land Council’s newsletter.