State acquires 3,500 acre conservation restriction

Congratulations to the MA Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, their land trust partners, the Open Space Institute and the federal Forest Legacy Program, all  involved in acquiring a conservation restriction on 3,500 on Brushy Mountain in Leverett and Shutesbury. Over the past four years, the Patrick-Murray Administration has conserved 85,000 acres of land across the state and the conservation restriction acquired by MassWildlife is the largest on a contiguous block of privately owned land in Massachusetts' history! Read more here

Seals off coast of Cape Cod CR

A recent monitoring visit to Great Island, Yarmouth in December was observed by two harbor seals perched on rocks just off shore. It is nice to have some  help keeping an eye on things...now if we can just teach them to fill out a monitoring form!

Number One Private Holder of CR Acreage Statewide!

The National Conservation Easement Database (NCED) is an exciting new initiative.  It is the first national database of Conservation Easement information - an effort by five leading private organizations with three federal agencies, to provide the best available information from both public and private agencies who hold Conservation Easements (CEs).*  This information, largely coming from private organizations, has historically been very difficult, if not nearly impossible, to access.  We were very excited to look at the NCED results for Massachusetts published last year, and easily compare where The Trustees of Reservations (TTOR) stands statewide relative to other public and private organizations in terms of CR acreage protected.  Here are the top 20!

*N.B.- As you may well know, Massachusetts is the only state to use the term 'Conservation Restrictions' (CRs) - one and the same as 'Conservation Easements!' (CEs)

After the three public state agencies listed at the top, TTOR came in fourth - and first among private conservation organizations!  While we recognize our uniquely large organizational size, capacity, and statewide scope as factors in this success, we feel this is also a great testament to the partnerships we build.  These are with a variety of partners - from conservation-minded private landowners of course, to city and town governments, other land trusts, and even reaches the federal level with a CR negotiated under the USDA Forest Legacy Program.   

It is also a testament to the hard work of our professional land conservation staff around the state.  These busy and creative folks identify projects and work diligently to ensure each conservation real estate transaction - from negotiating new CRs, to receiving outright land donations, to purchases, and assists to municipalities and other land trusts - comes to fruition and proceeds with professional standards of due diligence.  For CR properties, staff then conducts stewardship through annual monitoring visits.  During these visits, we meet with landowners to discuss property management, document conservation values and conditions of the property, and identify possible encroachments or violations which may go against the CR terms.  These visits occur annually for each and every CR, per Land Trust Alliance Standards. 

We also noted that NCED does not yet list approximately 1,500 more acres encumbered by our CRs.  Our latest calculations put us at over 350 individual parcels, which encompass more than 19,000 acres!  From Greater Boston to the Berkshires, from the Cape and Islands to the Pioneer Valley and Hilltowns, our CRs are very likely near you, successfully protecting many lesser-known 'Special Places' beyond our well-known Reservations.  Though mostly inaccessible to the public, these privately protected properties contribute incalculably to the integrity of Massachusetts' rich habitats, history, agricultural lands, and scenic landscapes.

 - Andrew Bentley, CR Stewardship Assistant

Helping hands from volunteers

We're fortunate to have several dedicated volunteers who help with our conservation restriction stewardship work. One volunteer, Dean-Lorenz Szumylo (pictured here with CR Monitoring Specialist Sally Naser), inspects several properties on the North Shore, while others help keep an eye on CRs on the south shore, in the metrowest region, and the Berkshires. Also, this summer we hosted a Vermont Law School intern who helped with numerous legal issues on CRs located throughout the state.

From all of us at the CR Program to our volunteers -- "Thanks!"

Fisher cats rebounding in Massachusetts

On a recent trip to Fitchburg to inspect our newest conservation restriction we were fortunate to see a Fisher. Sometimes called a fisher cat, the Martes pennanti  is actually a member of the weasel family that includes the mink, otter, and skunk. An adult can grow up to 16 pounds and measure 3 feet from head to tail. These agile and elusive animals were nearly driven to extinction in Massachusetts from loss of forest habitat and trapping, but have made a remarkable comeback in recent decades. It was exciting to see such a beautiful, wild creature sprint across the forest floor and then run straight up a tree....quite a sight in the middle of a city!

Source USFWS

Simple and Timeless Field Monitoring Tools

Complicated CR documents often contain very specific language regarding areas where a landowner may and may not exercise certain reserved rights.  For example, a building envelope typically allows an owner to maintain existing structures and build new ones as negotiated in the CR document.  Areas such as these have, ideally, been physically monumented by a professional surveyor and labeled, with metes and bounds (distances and bearings) on the property's survey or plan of land.  For example, a CR might state that, on a certain part of the property, no reserved-right construction activity may occur within a certain distance of a sensitive resource area, such as a wetland. 

Sometimes Trustees' monitoring staff need to check these distances in the field, or determine exactly where a property or building envelope boundary lies.  Below we highlight two simple but indispensable tools for such determinations. 

In the first picture below, staff employ a good old-fashioned tool - a simple tape measure - to determine the distance from a restricted property boundary to new construction on the same landowner's unrestricted parcel.  Here, the measurement point was a professional surveyor's monument on the boundary line of the restricted property, allowing us to be sure that we were measuring from a very exact reference point out to the construction area.   

 

Trustees' Staff Measuring from a survey monument to new construction: Kelley Whitmore (Community Conservation Specialist), Left.  Andrew Bentley (CR Stewardship Assistant), Right.  Anthony Orlando (CR Enforcement Ranger), far end of tape. 

Other times, it is necessary to determine exactly where a property line lies.  In New England, we often, but certainly not always, have the benefit of historic stone wall boundaries to help us.  Modern technology supplies us with GPS units, which are nice approximators, but ours have a margin of error ranging from 5 to 15 feet, depending on satellite reception.  However, with the help of a survey and the timeless and indispensable tool pictured below, we are able to determine that boundary within a much more precise margin of error - a margin which only a professional surveyor could best.  You may have already guessed what tool that is, and here it is -

   

Sally Naser, standing on a survey corner monument, sights Andrew Bentley down the property line with a compass.