Looking Beyond the Horizon

A little over four years ago, Cold Hollow to Canada launched a 5-year strategic plan to serve as a roadmap for advancing ecosystem integrity, biological diversity, and forest resiliency in Vermont’s Cold Hollow Mountains. The plan was built upon the three pillars of Sustainable Stewardship, Forestland Conservation, and Community Empowerment. As we look ahead to 2025 and beyond, our Board and Staff have begun to reflect on our accomplishments against this plan and to ask ourselves what it will take to meet the markers we established for ourselves. Together, we’ve conserved over 6,000 acres (about 26% of our goal to double the amount of conserved forestland in our region), with another 14,000 acres in our project pipeline. We’ve also deepened the bench of partner organizations to advance this effort, and continue to foster new relationships in our communities which support this endeavor. We also continue to grow our capacity and anticipate bringing on our first full-time Executive Director in the coming months. Having launched this exciting new strategic planning process, in the coming year we hope to share a vision that will take us to 2030 and beyond. We hope that as we craft this plan together, all members of the CHC Community will see a place for themselves within it. We must ask ourselves, what does this shared landscape need from us now? What are the challenges before us, and the opportunities within our grasp? Now, more than ever, we find our organization at the center of a growing conversation in Vermont around collaborative conservation, spurred by the passage of the Community Resilience and Biodiversity Protection Act. Among so many, CHC is perhaps best positioned to catalyze the action we need and serve as a model for what place-based grassroots conservation looks like. This is truly an amazing time to be engaged with this work, and we’re grateful to have you with us.