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On October 18th the six land trusts along the federally designated Wild & Scenic Upper Farmington River convened for a discussion of shared needs and opportunities for partnership. Hosted by the Farmington River Coordinating Committee (FRCC), a collaboration of organizations funded by the National Park Service that oversees the Wild & Scenic section of the river, the six land trusts were brought together to find out how FRCC can best utilize its financial and other resources to support the land trusts along the “Wild & Scenic” Farmington.
The participants of this first ever meeting of these six land trusts were asked to fill out a survey prior to the meeting to identify specific land trust needs in the region and help frame the conversation for the meeting. Some findings of the survey included:
- Land trusts were interested in improving their skills prioritizing parcels for acquisition, targeting landowners, fundraising, understanding IRS regulations, board development, wildlands protection, and volunteer recruitment.
- Land trusts invest most of their time in fundraising, board development, and volunteer recruitment/management.
- Land trusts are interested in direct assistance in monitoring conservation easements specifically in the areas of stewardship, administration, GIS/mapping, and legal support.
- Most of the land trusts are interested in partnering with other land trusts on baseline reporting, monitoring, GIS, and legal defense activities if needed.
From these survey responses the land trusts identified 43 specific actions in the meeting that could benefit their organizations and the effectiveness of the land conservation work they do. Specific actions fell into the areas of fundraising, board development, advancing legal skills and refining stewardship operations.
As expected, the discussion sparked a much broader recognition that neighboring land trusts have many things in common and that by working in a more collaborative fashion, there may be an opportunity to leverage resources and improve the economies of scale and effectiveness of the important conservation work they do.
Land trusts participating in the meeting included the Barkhamsted Land Trust, the Winchester Land Trust, the New Hartford Land Trust, the Canton Land Conservation Trust, the Hartland Land Trust and the Colebrook Land Conservancy.
The Connecticut Land Conservation Council will be co-hosting a series of similar roundtables in various parts of the state in 2008. Keep your eye on the enews for more information in the coming months.
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