Six Woodland Councils
Below are six organizations formed between 1998 and 2007 that have achieved great conservation success, typically from limited seed funding. Key attributes are listed for each group.
North Quabbin Regional Landscape Partnership
Ten years-old, full-time staff, anchor partner is the regionalMt. Grace Land Conservation Trust, multiple funding sources, municipal and landowner outreach
Highland Communities Initiative
Seven years-old, full-time coordinator, The Trustees of Reservations, grant-funded, outreach and education to town boards and landowners
Taunton River Watershed Campaign
Three years-old, part-time coordinator, Taunton River Watershed Association, grant-funded, land protection)
Westfield Highlands Forest Partnership
Two years-old, full-time staff, anchor partner is The Nature Conservancy, grant-funded, outreach
Mass-Conn Sustainable Forest Partnership
Less than a year-old, part-time coordinator, many strong partners, no clear anchor member, multiple sources of potential funding, aggregated land conservation)
Quabbin to Cardigan Conservation Collaboration
Three years-old, Massachusetts-New Hampshire collaboration, part-time coordinator, anchor partners are the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests and the North Quabbin Regional Landscape Partnership, grant-funded, collaborative priority-setting
The North Quabbin Regional Landscape Partnership (NQRLP)
was established in 1998 with a mission to identify, protect and enhance strategic ecological, cultural and historic open space within the rural landscape of the greater North Quabbin Region of Massachusetts.
The Partnership is a voluntary association of town board members, landowners, state and federal conservation agencies, non-profit land trusts, regional planning organizations and academic institutions. Since 2005 the NQRLP has:
- Submitted the first bi-state Forest Legacy (FL) application in the country;
- Submitted the top-ranked FL application in the nation in 2006;
- Assisted three Partnership towns to pass the Community Preservation Act (CPA) to use for conservation this year; and,
- Helped conserve 1,552 acres worth $3.5 million andanother 4,414 acres worth over $8 million in upcoming years. For more information or to join the NQRLP call Jay Rasku, NQRLP Coordinator, at 978-544-2118 or email info@nqpartnership.org
The Highland Communities Initiative (HCI)
was formed in 2000 to enhance the rural character and quality of life of the Highlands Region of western Massachusetts. HCI builds the capacity of local towns and organizations by working with community leaders to adopt the CPA , providing educational programs for landowners and training for volunteer planning boards. HCI also launched a successful sense-of-place outreach campaign called "My place is the Highlands."
Since 2005, HCI has:
- Administered a small grant program of $27,000 that has helped complete six land conservation projects totaling 963 acres.
- Organized 37 conservation workshops for 1,150 people who own 16,000 acres. In the region, 16 landowners protected 1,808 acres of land during this time period.
- Published, Your Land, Your Choices which was requested by 625 landowners. 3500 additional copies were distributed by partners and volunteers.
- Partnered with 13 regional and statewide organizations and institutions.
- Funded and supported 20 zoning bylaw revisions, 12 subdivision regulation updates, three master plans, 12 open space and recreation plans and six campaigns for CPA. Twenty-four towns have successfully updated their zoning with HCI's support, and two towns have adopted CPA.
For more information contact Wendy Sweetser, Director of HCI, at (413) 268-8219 or wsweetser@ttor.org .
The Taunton River Watershed Campaign (TRWC)
The Taunton River Watershed Campaign was formed in 2005 so nine conservation groups and a regional planning agency could work together to protect critical water and land resources while preserving the character of communities throughout the Taunton River watershed in southeastern Massachusetts.
Since 2005, the TRWC has:
- Protected 1,000 acres with its 10 partners
- Raised $500,000 of state and federal funding for a comprehensive study of the Taunton River Watershed and $400,000 for a study of the Mill River Watershed
- Assisted six communities with CPA , two of which adopted the Act.
- Provided funding support to a regional open space plan and to seven town open space and recreation plans.
For more information, please contact Susan Spears at (866) 393-TRWA or at campaign@savethetaunton.org
The Westfield Highlands Forest Partnership (WHFP)
The Westfield Highlands Forest Partnership was initiated by The Nature Conservancy's (TNC) Massachusetts Chapter in 2006 to ensure a healthy and functional landscape in the Westfield River Highlands by connecting people to information and action. The WHF Partnership is a voluntary association of land conservation trusts, environmental organizations, outdoor recreation groups, economic development institutions, a university extension service, a college environmental center and two state environmental agencies. The WHF Partnership has organized public meetings on the state's current use taxation program and on trails and has employed an innovative landowner outreach project. Contact Laura Marx, TNC Forest Ecologist at (413) 354-7780 or at lmarx@tnc.org.
The MassConn Sustainable Forest Partnership (MassConn)
The MassConn Sustainable Forest Partnership was formed in 2007 and includes regional and statewide conservation land trusts and environmental organizations from north central Connecticut and south central Massachusetts. MassConn's members are in the process of reaching out to additional partners as well as initiating efforts to establish their own regional aggregation land conservation initiative. For more information, please contact Jennifer Ohop, Partnership Coordinator at (413)267-9654 or by email at ohop@norcrossws.org .
Quabbin to Cardigan Conservation Collaborative (Q2C)
Q2C is a public/private effort to protect a broad corridor of interconnected conservation land in the Monadnock Highlands, stretching more than 100 miles from the Quabbin Reservoir in central Massachusetts to New Hampshire's Mt. Cardigan and beyond. The region contains one of the largest remaining areas of contiguous forest in central New England, but intense new pressures threaten this unique landscape.
View the
Q2C Fact Sheet
(3.1 MB PDF) for more details about the area of concern, pressures causing change in the area, and the Collaborative partners. For full-page views of the Q2C region, see the
conservation values map
(2.5 MB PDF) and the focus areas map (1.3 MB PDF).
For more information, contact Chris Wells, Q2C Coordinator, at (603) 224-9945 or cwell@forestsociety.org
