Greetings friends and welcome to the Summer 2019 edition of CONNECTIONS, the quarterly newsletter from Cold Hollow to Canada. Hopefully you made it through the recent heatwave, whether it was by jumping into one of our local swimming holes, finding some shade in the forest, or creating your own gentle breeze swatting at the deer flies.
We don’t slow down for the heat and things are busy here at Cold Hollow to Canada. Our landowners involved with the Cold Hollow Woodlots Program will be digging into more practices this fall to support forest health, wildlife habitat, and water quality. Implementation of this work is supported by the Regional Conservation Partnership Program we’ve discussed in past newsletters, bringing over half a million dollars to our region to support work in our shared landscape. From warbler habitat, to water bars, this program is helping us build a more resilient landscape in the face of challenges like climate change, and changing markets.
We’re also deep into the Carbon Aggregation Project with our partners at the Vermont Land Trust. This first of its kind project will allow smaller landowners (those with 200 to 2,000 acres) to enter into the voluntary market by coming together in a new approach at monetizing ecosystem services in way previously unavailable to landowner at this scale. We hope to create a model that can be replicated elsewhere in the state, so that other private landowners can realize this opportunity. Keeping our forests economically viable is a big step towards keeping the as forests, and since keeping forests as forests in a principle goal of our shared work we see this as key tool moving forward. Watch this space for more news in our upcoming fall newsletter!
We’re also gearing up for our Annual Celebration in Montgomery later this year, a chance to come together and raise a glass to our collective work towards a vision of a healthy and intact forested landscape that supports a strong and sustainable local economy through stewardship, with protection of core wildlife habitat and connectivity across the entire Northern Forest. Watch for the Save the Date soon, with more information on our guest speaker for the evening. Not to be missed!
So grab a cold one, kick back, and dig into this issue of CONNECTIONS, where you’ll find news about the Champlain Adirondack Biosphere Reserve, an update on Emerald Ash Borer and its impact on our wetlands, information about Bird Friendly Maple straight from the sugarbush, and an update on the Working Lands Enterprise Board, as well as other state funding for our working land economy.