Walking the Berkshires

NN in the LJ

Last week's Lakeville Journal carried my Nature Notes column on our National Bird, readable here with free registration .  Fair use excerpt:

Bald eagles, wild turkeys, beaver, bear and moose, once driven from Connecticut,  have made promising and even dramatic returns.  Today we live alongside each other — not always easily — but whether encountered in midstream or in our very backyards, these species are evidence of extraordinary resilience and adaptation.  

Not every plant or animal is able to make such adjustments, and habitat destruction remains the single greatest cause of biodiversity loss worldwide. Still, the landscape of northwest Connecticut retains a wild and scenic character, where coyotes howl and eagles soar despite centuries of settlement.  

It is not difficult to imagine a time when even western mountain lions will venture a furtive paw in the Litchfield Hills as they gradually track eastward. Whether we would accommodate the presence of a top predator of their caliber in our neighborhood is an open question, but it is certainly something to ponder. And it certainly makes my heart glad to see eagles here.

Forests on the Skids

The Hartford Courant ran this front page story today about the beleaguered state of the forestry sector of Connecticut's economy.  The fact that Connecticut still has a forestry sector to its economy was probably news to most of the paper's readership, let alone one that is valued at $500 million annually. 

The article is quite good, as far as it goes, but despite its prominent column inches it really only scratches the surface of what is going on in our woodlands and with the market for forest products in southern New England.  The part that really got me howling was the idea of our depressed oak market as a fashion victim:

"[I]n 2006, just as inventories peaked, global preferences for wood suddenly changed.  Designers, furniture makers and home builders started shifting from the rich, dark grains of New England oak toward lighter, more subtle grains such as birch and maple. At the same time, world markets were flooded with inexpensive exports, such as Russian birch and bamboo and cork laminates from Latin America and China."

Actually, these are not isolated factors that just happened to coincide.  All that cheap wood is - surprise - "lighter and more subtle grained", a market-based cause and effect.  Although if there really is an Oscar de la Renta of the forest products industry, I want to meet that person.  This could also explain why plaid is hot again this season.

Southern New England has been shipping whole logs out of the region for decades rather than milling them locally.  In the last couple of years, the renewed market for firewood has been the one bright spot in an otherwise depressed hardwood market.  There are sawmills in our area that are idle because firewood sells better than lumber.  There are fewer and fewer people making a living in the state from forestry every year - much less than from farming, even with 58% of the surface area of Connecticut covered in trees.  Needless to say, there is not a strong constituency to save family forests and small forestry operations the way there is for local agriculture.

The development value of the land far outweighs its timber value.  The economic incentive for growing old, high quality trees is gone if there is no market for veneer quality wood, and so what forestry does occur will be on shorter rotations.  The biological value of such woodlands will also be diminished, which is why the state of forestry should matter to conservationists in the state of Connecticut.

When the Terms of Victory Ensure a Lost Cause

I left the following in the comments of Kevin Levin's blog Civil War Memory, in response to a discussion about the Wal-Mart / Wilderness controversy:

Historic landscapes are increasingly rare in the intensively developed Eastern corridor of the United States. Just as habitat fragmentation reduces biodiversity, battlefield fragmentation eliminates some of its potential to inform and affect visitors and community identity. Rarely can land protection efforts realize the full conservation potential of a significant landscape, either as habitat or for its historic value. Where such opportunities still exist, it may well be a top conservation priority to invest all the time, treasure and creativity at society’s disposal to ensure that these landscapes maintain their full integrity.

How many American battlefields still have this potential? Antietam? Gettysburg? Saratoga? Not many more. And sadly, not the Wilderness.

Many, many other battle sites have not been isolated in time, where historic viewsheds can be maintained and the surrounding community becomes identified, for better or worse, by a signature event that occurred there long before living memory. If you want to interpret the site of Bunker Hill, you must contend with a obelisk in the midst of the Charlestown that rose from the ashes and a community whose residents have other sources of self and community identity. For some of us today, this is a regrettable loss,but for the generations who came after the Revolution, the monument was a fitting memorial and the idea that valuable real estate would be locked up in the interest of preservation would have made little sense.

There are many different values at play in situations like this. One thing I have learned in my years in the land protection business is that community support is vital if you want to conserve significant amounts of land, and there is no better way to derail a well-intentioned preservation effort then to let it become characterized as an imposition by outsiders – or worse, by Government – that values a rare species over the needs of local people, public land over private property, or the memory of something that happened long ago over the perceived needs of those who live there today. It may be a false dichotomy, but it can be lethal for conservation.

Places like the Wilderness are without a doubt under intense development pressure. It goes against our instincts to accept the loss of another irreplaceable acre of land with historic significance. Yet those terms of victory will ensure a lost cause.

On the other hand, there are many examples across this country, even in places typically thought of as intensely conservative and staunchly in favor of private property rights, where it is a condition of development permitting that lost wetlands and habitat be mitigated by the restoration or conservation of an equivalent amount at another location. What if Wal-Mart, as a condition of the permitting it received, had purchased for preservation another area of the Battlefield, perhaps with even greater significance? This would not have addressed all the impacts of development – traffic, for instance – but it could have been a creative solution and provided an outcome other than the zero sum game.

It would only be possible if those granting the permits, those working for preservation, those concerned about economic development, and the developers themselves were willing to work toward such an outcome. Sometimes, giving an inch is an unacceptable concession. Far more frequently, it can result in a negotiated compromise that provides benefits for more than just one side. This is a hard lesson, but one we need to grapple with before the next crisis that threatens the special places we value.

Sages

Elias and I went to one of my favorite places yesterday, where the air rushes through the hemlocks and moss drips from overhanging stone.  Sages Ravine cleaves the eastern face of the Taconic Plateau along the Connecticut and Massachusetts border - there are old monuments here perched on the steep hillside delineating these territories - and unlike the other celebrated waterfalls of our region it gets very few visitors on a hot summer day.  Part of the reason may be that there is no sign marking the trail and no obvious place to park besides a worn pull off hard by the bridge that spans the stream as it makes its final plunge to the lowlands.  The old spur trail from here to the AT is obscured by dead fall.  This leaves it a special spot that locals know about: our own piece of primal wilderness.

The main attraction of Sages, besides the noticeably cooler air temperature on a sweltering day, are the dark pools and increasingly spectacular cataracts that descend the ravine.  The rocks are slick and treacherous, and one is always mindful that others have taken falls here from which they never recover.  The water is bracingly chill even in August, and the sunlight filters down in dappled splashes and broad shadows like the flanks of the wild brook trout.  There are great boles of fallen trees that snowmelt and floodwater pile up and push down the gorge from pool to pool.  It is a place of wild fascination, where in low water the stream dives beneath its bed and under hill until it emerges in a torrent from the rocky bank downstream. 

Elias is six, goat-footed, but still willing to hold my steadying hand.  We made out way through the laurels and the chestnut saplings to the first of the plunge pools, but I encouraged him that we would visit each in turn after first reaching the greatest of the waterfalls.  This part of Sages actually has one final pool above these falls, but it is wise not to try and reach it for the climb is perilous and the water dark and deep.  We stopped at the foot of this great cataract, the water still high for this time in August, and waded over the mound of alluvial stones pushed up at the edge of the water.  It was quickly over his head, but not the place to practice his newly acquired dog paddle.  We tried out each pool in succession, finding one that was broad and deep enough for both of us within our own comfort zones.  In a few minutes we were refreshed and ready for towels and the short walk back to our car.

I used to come to Sages alone, after work, and for a time before we had children Viv and I would drop into the cool of the trees for a dip on a humid afternoon.  Now my children are of an age and maturity where it is possible to share this place with them as well, to learn how to be in a wilderness of wary wonder.   

Bog Turtle Disease Alert

The federally Threatened bog turtle faces a new threat in the northern portion of its contiguous range.  On August 5th, the USFWS issued an advisory bulletin that an unusually high number of dead and apparently diseased bog turtles have been reported from four states, including New York and Massachusetts.  I received the alert by email from a colleague and the full bulletin is reposted here. 

"...The number of bog turtles found dead in their wetland habitat (2 to 4 dead turtles in each of four wetlands in NY and MA) exceeds that which is typically reported.

In some cases, dead bog turtles have been found entirely intact, with no obvious cause of death.
On several live bog turtles, a grayish or whitish substance and/or discoloration has been
documented on the skin of the head, neck and limbs, as well as on the claws. In some cases,
these appear as skin lesions. Scute sloughing and loss of claws and toes has also been observed.
Based on data collected at a Massachusetts site, the symptoms appear to worsen over time.
At this time, the causative agent(s) of the observed symptoms has not been identified..."

This is extremely troubling news.  When I was with The Nature Conservancy, bog turtle conservation in Massachusetts, Connecticut and part of Eastern New York was a major focus of my work.  The bog turtle is at the extreme northern extrent of its contiguous range in Massachusett.  The USFWS Recovery Plan for the bog turtle's northern population identies just three bog turtle sites in the Commonwealth, but two of them are considered good sites and are under conservation management.  I am intimately familiar with both of these, and know that if one has lost 2-4 adults to a new threat the viability of what would otherwise be considered a strong and vital population is in grave peril.   Past research indicates that the loss of just one breeding adult a year at these sites would be enough to tip the balance toward extirpation.

The 2001 rare species recovery plan records what was known at that time about the threat posted to wild bog turtle populations by disease (my emphasis added):

    "...At present, there are no substantiated reports of disease affecting a wild population of bog turtles, although at one site in Columbia County, New York (J. L. Behler, pers. comm) the number of dead turtles is cause for concern; eight dead bog turtles were collected during three visits to the site in 1988 and 1989 ( A. breisch, in Mt. 2000).  A sick turtle removed from that population and held for several years in captivity tested positive for upper respiratory distress syndrome (URDS) upon necropy (J. L. Behler, pers. comm.).  Although this could indicate a health problem within that communication, it is also possible that the turtle contracted this disease while in captivity.  Disease issues have the potential to become a much larger threat to wild bog turtle populations as they are subjected to more handling by researchers or if manipulation of turtle populations is undertaken through the deliberate release into the wild of bog turtles from other areas, zoological collections, or those seized by law enforcement activities.  It should be noted that thorough health screening of wild-caught bog turtles has not been a standard practice of researchers, although it may be warranted (Smith in iitt. 2001)..."

I do not know for certain whether all four sites where increased mortality and apparent disease have been observed coincide with those where there has been more handling by researchers, but it is highly likely at least at the first site where such observations were made, because very few people besides researchers even know where the turtles are or would know to report what they had observed to the proper authorities.  In the Massachusetts case, only researchers have legal access to the sites.

There is additional publically available data concerning the possibly diseased bog turtle site in new York mentioned in 2001 rare species recovery plan.  Beacham's Guide to the Endangered Species of North America (2000) identifies the respiratory disease at that site as Mycoplasma:

"...Of additional concern is the recent (1997) discovery of Mycoplasma (the bacterium that adversely affects the desert tortoise) at a bog turtle site in New York. This disease has the potential to cause significant declines in bog turtle populations. The site where Mycoplasma has been discovered has been identified as one of the best remaining New York sites and lies in a valley with additional, extant sites leading to the possibility of spread of the disease through a significant portion of the remaining bog turtle range in New York State..."

The USFWS disease alert makes no mention of Mycoplasma and instead describes different symptoms.  That is what is most alarming about this new threat.  An unknown and highly lethal pathogen will take time to analyze, let alone isolate causes and develop a meaningful response. Bog turtles do not have any time.  their populations are too small.

Consider that in 2006, a new disease affecting little brown bats in New York was first described for science. Three years later,  white nose syndrome is causing up to 90-100% mortality in bat caves from the White Mountains of New Hampsive to sw Virginia.  It has affected between 500,000 and 1,000,000 bats of several different species.  There is still no absolute cause for this disease, nor a cure.  One theory is that human activity may have been an initial vector for the spread of the fungus.

I suspect that the reason this new turtle disease has not yet been reported in Connecticut is that no researcher has been to our few remaining (and much poorer quality) bog turtle sites to check. There has not been a live turtle reported from a couple of these places in years.  I am aware that several years ago, one Connecticut turtle was found by a passerby and taken to a public beach where it was spotted by a knowledgable person and ultimately returned to the site where it belonged.  My understanding is that this turtle was later found dead.

This leaves open a difficult question.  Should researchers visit other bog turtle sites to determine whether they, too, have evidence of increased mortality and apparant disease?  Or should they refrain from doing so, given the potential that their activity could be contaminating clean sites?   The felt soles of waders are known sources of introducing the microscopic alga  Didymosphenia geminata or "Rock Snot" to trout streams.  Unless soaked for at least 40 minutes in hot water at least 113° F (45° C) - or for 30 minutes with a 5% solution of dishwashing detergent - what keeps a researcher dry may be killing the very things they care for.

Yale Farm Golf Development Proposal Withdrawn

In an unexpected development in the more than six year saga over the potential development of a world class golf course in North Canaan and Norfolk, CT, the developers have withdrawn their application.  Citing the collapse of America's economy" , they said that  as “painful as it is to give up the fight (we came to quite enjoy it) it is the only prudent course of action. ” They conceded in a letter to the State DEP on Monday that a $25 million investment for the project “could no longer be justified.”

This has been a divisive plan since 2002 when a partnership of Slade Mead, representing the family members who inherited the 780-acre, 17 parcel property; David A. Tewksbury; and Roland A Betts decided to pursue the project.  Initially described as a membership community with associated residences, the eventual permits filed were only for the golf course.

The fight over the development of this property became bitter and partisan, with million expended in legal and design costs by the applicants and by interveners opposed to the project as excessive and needlessly detrimental to water quality and other conservation values.  For some it boiled down to landowner rights verses the interests of conservationists, who made several serious offers that were not accepted to buy out the developers and conserve the vast majority of the land in a limited development proposal.

The property could still be developed into as many as 34 approval not required lots, and there are five residences currently on the site.  The same economic factors that contributed to the non-viability of the golf course proposal also apply to large residential subdivisions in our area at the moment.  There is also considerable bad blood between abuttors and proponants of the golf development.  I believe that there still could be a financially attractive limited development conservation outcome, but only if those with site control wish to consider such a plan.  In the last paragraph of their withdrawal letter, the developers say:

"The Mead family has owned the Yale Farm property for over 90 years, Roland & Lois Betts have had a home in Clayton Corners for 27 years and David Tewksbury has had his home abutting the Yale Farm property for 16 years. All of us are keenly disappointed to have reached this conclusion. We all love the Berkshires. The permitting process is not without scars and strained friendships but the economy dictates that is time to turn the page."

Let us hope that the next chapter can include a solution that works for the owners of this property to meet their needs and is consistant with conserving its primary conservation values.  I am certain there is bitter disappointment, and not a little anger and frustration with the conservation community, but if the economy was the true rationalle for wirthdrawing the project, then perhaps another serious conservation proposal, regardless of who may be backing it, can be treated as business, rather than personal.

Dutchess Land Conservancy Receives LTA Accreditation

This would be no small achievement even for a large conservation organization, and for the Dutchess Land Conservancy is a real feather in their cap.  The voluntary acceditation is not administered by the IRS, as this article erroneously reports, but by the Land Trust Alliance as a self-regulatory mechanism to recognize land trusts that meet the highest standards in our industry.  DLC deserves full marks for earning this designation.

The Land Trust Alliance requires that its more than 1,600 member organizations nationwide agree to adopt LTA's overarching Standards and Practices as "guidelines for the responsible operation of a land trust, which is run legally, ethically and in the public interest and conducts a sound program of land transactions and stewardship."  37 indicator practices within the S&P form the basis for accreditation, but it is a much more complicated task than merely agreeing to abide by these standards of governance.  There is an accreditation commission that provides independant verification and the process is long and involved.  Dutchess Land Conservancy is just the 55 Land Trust to receive accrediation since the the first two rounds in 2007 and 2008 were announced. 

The Dutchess Land Trust operates out of Millbrook, New York and since 1985 has conserved more than 30,000 acres, especially in the north and eastern sections of the county.  It has nine paid staff, a generous cadre of supporters, and is particularly skilled with Geographic Information Systems and at conserving land through the development process. It is a well established regional land trust with a strong local base.  Even with these resources, accreditation took a full year of very hard work.

There are many local land trusts, and even some larger ones, that would have a tough time coming up with all the documentation and the track record of compliance that this standard requires.  As long as it remains voluntary, some will choose not to seek accrediation because of the time and resources required.  There is likely to come a time when being accredited will be a grant stipulation and will force some land trusts to face some difficult decisions aboyut their long-term viability if they do not go for accreditation.  They will need extra capacity and outside resources to successfully complete the accreditation process.  Some will find those resources (and in my line of work, I hope the program I direct will be able to provide assistance).  Some may consider merging.  Some will stagnate and some will wither away, like the Mohegan Land Trust in Tolland, CT which is now dissolving. 

Dutchess Land Concervancy works in a county with only a handful of other land protection organizations. The Litchfield Greenprint, which covers an adjacent area of comparable size, has a local land trust operating in nearly every of the 27 towns it serves.  Over the years these entitities and various state and federal conservation entitities have in aggregate protected more than 20% of Litchfield County.  Some are clearly stronmger than others, but most have a clear identity and local mandate.  I would much prefer to see them stronger and working more closely together to raise the bar on what we can collectively aspire to conserve in this region.  Accreditation may be the wake up call that some of us need to pull together as well as to make our organizations as sound and effective as they can be.

Green Job Layoffs

The Nature Conservancy announced yesterday a 10% reduction in staff.  Last month, the Trust for Public Land laid off 15%.  I have good friends and former colleagues at each organization and I yearn for them.  I yearn for us all, because this economy spares no one.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports:

At least $32-million donors had expected to give through charitable remainder trusts, gift annuities, and other planned gifts are now on hold because of the economy, according to Angela Sosdian, the Nature Conservancy’s director of philanthropy for gift planning. That is equivalent to the amount such gifts typically produce in an entire year.

“There is long list of individuals who said they want to wait until the market turns around,” Ms. Sosdian said. “No one knows how quickly the market will rebound, and we don’t know what threshold donors are looking for to move forward.”

A 10% reduction in staff at TNC means close to 400 jobs.  If the past is any guide, it will hit land managers, administrative support staff, scientists and land protection professionals particularly hard.  These are the hard facts of business survival, and in most respects what is happening at these large Conservation non-profits is no different from losses in the for-profit sector of our economy.   I can say from personal observation that people who work for non-profits are often motivated by a strong belief in the mission of their employer.  For them it is not just a paycheck; it is significant and meaningful work.  There is more at stake for these people than their jobs or those of their friends.  Something core to their purpose and identity gets shaken as well.

It is difficult to make the transition from the non-profit to the for-profit world, but that is what many of these newly unemployed conservation professionals will have to do because there are hiring freezes and staff reductions throughout this sector.  Those who live and work in more remote locations (and I include myself in this camp) are unlikely to find a comparable job opening with another non-profit within even a long commuting distance of home, so it means selling and trying to get new financing in a down market as well.

Investing in the Green Economy is about more than retooling our economy to produce parts for windmills and squeezing fuel from what we can grow.  Heck, if you have any liquidity at all, buying land with conservation possibilities in my neck of the woods might get you a better return, if you can sit on it for a couple of years, than any other investment you might make.  

I hope my friends find good places to land.  You need your wits about you in times like these.

 

Recent Lakeville Journal Nature Notes Articles

My lastest Lakeville Journal article, readable on-line with free subscription, deals with the Housatonic River.  Fair use excerpt:

"

I drove along the Housatonic in the piercing cold of the New Year. The steam rising from the river glazed the trees on either bank in glistening sheaths of ice.  They call this phenomenon “sea smoke” in the Gulf of Maine, and it arises when water that is cold enough to kill an unprotected swimmer is still warm by comparison to the arctic January air.  

The cold streams and rivers of the Berkshires and Litchfield Hills can look like the Valley of 10,000 Smokes. At such times they reveal their kinship both to the urban vapors that rise from sidewalk grates when it’s Christmastime in the city, and to the midsummer wisps that settle in cool fens and seepage wetlands.

The Housatonic certainly seemed to be smoking as I drove past the paper mills on my way north. Not so many years ago, you could tell what color paper they were making by the stain of the water below the discharge from the mill. Massachusetts has some of the most progressive wetlands and river protection laws in the Northeast, but for most of our history we have treated the  waters as sewers for the excretions of industry and as convenient dumping grounds for the effluvia of human enterprise...."

The previous article, which ran on December 18th, was inspired by the birds of winter.

 

Pave It to Save It

These are the best of times and the worst of times for land protection.  On the one hand, real estate values have started to come down.  On the other, landowner expectations have not fully made that adjustment, and with credit tight and conservation dollars even more limited, we still do not have the resources we need to take more advantage of these conservation opportunities.  There are some bargains to be had if conservation investors have the liquidity to buy and hold land now to protect later, but many potential conservation buyers have seen their world erupt in flames and are still trying to get a handle on what to do with their remaining assets.  While there is another year left to run on the Conservation Tax Incentives passed by Congress in 2006, many folks have lost more than they can recoup even with these attractive deductions.

What to do?

Conservation development is an idea that has gained traction in some quarters, particularly in hot real estate markets where saving land through the development process is the only feasible means to keep what limited open space remains open.  Around the Litchfield Hills, it is generally recognized that there is far more land we need to conserve across this landscape than we can possibly protect using conventional means.  Whether through a buy / divide / restrict / resell approach or through actually working with developers to ensure that more than just the scraps get saved, we need to maximize the conservation options at our disposal to have a realistic shot at saving the farms, forests and watershed lands that support this region's ecology and the rural quality of life we value.

This is by no means a simple proposition.  In a soft market, making the numbers work with limited development on the development side can more difficult, yet no one wants a large number of unsold lots or houses in their inventories either.  Conservationists need a process to determine what aspects of a property can and should be saved, and which properties are appropriate and feasible to conserve with limited development.  The hardest conservation values to protect with limited development are those that have to do with historic or scenic character, though even here I believe there are cases when it can and should be possible.  It may prove, as Disney discovered with wetland mitigation in Florida, that it makes better sense for large developers to underwrite the conservation of large tracts of undeveloped land to offset what they build as a huge, one-time offset.  In an ongoing discussion over at Civil War Memory, I made the observation that Wal-Mart might be convinced to follow a similar approach to its pending development at a site within the (no-longer) Wilderness battlefield.

It may be impossible for the goals of historic preservation to coexist with a Wal-Mart superstore.  But maybe they do not have to try and occupy the same space.  If Wal-Mart is going to hold this ground, perhaps it and others like it could be motivated to secure other valuable territory to conserve the Battlefield, as well as adopt design features that address noise, traffic, screening and other green practices.  Preservation doesn't need to become another Lost Cause.