Fall Mountain State Forest Dedication
Join The Nature Conservancy and the N.H. Division of Forests and Lands on Wednedsday, September 28, for a dedication of one of New Hampshire's newest state forests, Fall Mountain State Forest in Charlestown and Langdon. The event gets under way at 10 a.m. near Fall Mountain Regional High School. For more information, call Eric Aldrich, 603-224-5853, ext. 26.

Looking toward the future, Rockingham and Strafford Counties are projected to add more than 100,000 new residents from 2000 to 2025. With this growth comes the loss of important natural resources, including wildlife habitat, water supply protection and other ecological services. A new plan will take a close look at conservation priorities for New Hampshire's coastal watershed. Eric Aldrich photo.

A Plan for Action:
Science-Based Planning Begins for Coastal Watershed Land Conservation Plan

Spanning 980 square miles and 43 towns, New Hampshire’s coastal watersheds harbor exceptional natural, cultural, and scenic resources.  The state of New Hampshire, acting through the NH Coastal Program and the NH Estuaries Project, has initiated a 14-month effort to develop a comprehensive, science-based land conservation plan for our coastal watersheds.

To undertake the work, the state has engaged a partnership of The Nature Conservancy, Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, Rockingham Planning Commission and the Strafford Regional Planning Commission. The partners will rely primarily on existing geospatial data and information to conduct cutting-edge GIS modeling and analysis of the large coastal watersheds.

The resulting conservation plan will help to prioritize coastal watershed areas and develop regional strategies for maintaining diverse wildlife habitat, abundant wetlands, clean water, productive forests and farms, and outstanding recreational opportunities into the future.

The partners' first informational meeting on the plan will be held in early October, at which stakeholders will have the opportunity to comment on project methodology, collected data on local plans, and criteria for defining coastal watershed conservation priorities. A second meeting will be held in the spring of 1996 and will focus on proposed conservation priority areas, plan recommendations, and implementation strategies.

<<Learn more about the N.H. coastal watershed land conservation plan.>>

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Top of the State:
Hard Work, Great Kids, Better Trail
at TNC's Fourth Connecticut Lake

The trail to The Nature Conservancy's Fourth Connecticut Lake Preserve is a whole lot better now, thanks to the hard work of ten youths from the North Woods Stewardship Center of East Charleston, Vermont.

Between the ages of 16 and 21 and mostly from Vermont, the crew recently spent a solid week working on the trail at Fourth Lake.

The trail is steep and (until now) notoriously wet as it climbs from the U.S. customs station to Fourth Connecticut Lake, the source of the mighty Connecticut River. But it's a fantastic hike, a place where you can straddle two countries and two watersheds (the Connecticut and St. Lawrence rivers) for a good part of the way.

During the hot and humid week, the crew carried heavy cedar logs from Route 3 to points along the trail, all uphill, and built bog bridges over the wet spots.

"They were really impressive," said Wink Lees, TNC's northern New Hampshire land steward. "They worked really hard and put 100 percent into what they were doing. They were innovative and focused and had no complaints the whole time. It was pretty inspiring."

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Rare natural communities around Ossipee Lake were the focus of one of the field trips during the annual meeting of TNC's New Hampshire chapter. Deb Callahan photo.

Annual Meeting:
New Trustees, Remarkable Presentation and Fabulous Field Trips at Annual Meeting

The Conservancy welcomes four new members of the New Hampshire chapter's board of trustees. They were elected at this year's annual meeting, held Saturday, Sept. 10, at Camp Calumet in West Ossipee.

"We are so grateful to our trustees, our leadership volunteers," said Daryl Burtnett, state director of the Conservancy in New Hampshire. "We couldn't do our work without their expert skills and support."

Joining the New Hampshire board of trustees are:
Thomas Lee, Ph.D., an associate professor of forest ecology at the University of New Hampshire;
Arthur Mudge of Hanover, an avid birder and lawyer who has worked for U.S. Aid for International Development;
Laura Simoes, a managing partner at Louis Karno & Company Communications, a Concord-based strategic communications and public relations firm; and
Merle Schotanus, a retired Army colonel from Grantham, former state representative and a founding director of the Granite State Conservation Voters Alliance.

Also re-joining the board after a one-year hiatus is Cyrus B. Sweet, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel from New Castle who previously served on New Hampshire's board from 1994 to 2004.

The highlight of this year's annual meeting was a remarkable presentation by Phillip Hoose, author of the highly acclaimed new book, The Race to Save the Lord God Bird. Hoose, a conservation planner for The Nature Conservancy, told the incredible story of ornithologists' search for the ivory-billed woodpecker. While some biologists had given up hope that the reclusive bird survived widespread habitat destruction, others held out hope. Earlier this year, hope prevailed when the ivory-bill was re-discovered in the swampy woods of Arkansas.

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Jay Odell, The Nature Conservancy's Great Bay marine ecologist.

The journal BioScience, from the American Institute of Biological Sciences.

Natural Resource Tug-of-War:
A New Look at Conflicts
Over an Ancient Animal

If there was ever a poster child for an animal being pulled in many different directions by an array of conflicting interests, the horseshoe crab would surely be a leading candidate. Increasingly, disputes over how humans use trees, fish and other species escalate to the point where they're settled in courtrooms.

What's needed is a better approach for analyzing natural resource conflicts, according to the authors of a new paper published in the latest issue of BioScience, the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences.

The journal's cover story is authored by Jay Odell, marine ecologist for The Nature Conservancy in New Hampshire, along with Martha Mather of the U.S. Geological Survey and Robert Muth of the University of Massachusetts.

The ancient horseshoe crab, whose lineage dates back to before the dinosaurs, is sought by humans and wildlife alike for all sorts of things. Humans harvest horseshoe crabs as a bait for whelk and for their blood, which is widely used by the medical industry to prevent infection.

There's a long list of wildlife species that depend on horseshoe crabs or their eggs for all or part of their lifecycle. Several species of migratory shorebirds rely on horseshoe crab eggs as a primary food source during their annual stopover in Delaware Bay. Striped bass, flounder, sea turtles and many other species also eat horseshoe crab eggs and larvae.

With so many interests at stake in horseshoe crab numbers, disputes are bound to happen, and they have in the form of contentious legal disputes, mostly in Delaware Bay, but also spilling into other regions.

"An important step in understanding environmental conflicts is to clarify differences in social meanings, attitudes and values," the authors say. Their "biosocial approach" uses an interaction web to depict the relationship between social and ecological systems. The dispute over horseshoe crabs is used as a case study for a new method to help natural resource managers anticipate the consequences of allocation decisions.

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Coming Events:

September 22: A presentation of the Great Bay Resource Protection Partnership, featuring Doug Bechtel, director of conservation science for The Nature Conservancy in New Hampshire, on the gundalow at Sandy Point Discovery Center, Great Bay, Stratham, N.H.
The event runs from 6 to 8 p.m., is free, and is sponsored by the Gundalow Company.

September 28: Join The Nature Conservancy and the N.H. Division of Forests and Lands on Wednedsday, September 28, for a dedication of one of New Hampshire's newest state forests, Fall Mountain State Forest in Charlestown and Langdon. The event gets under way at 10 a.m. near Fall Mountain Regional High School. For more information, call Eric Aldrich, 603-224-5853, ext. 26.

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With your support ...

Working together, we can ensure the diversity of life on Earth and enrich the quality of life in New Hampshire now and for future generations.

You can make a significant impact by helping us preserve and steward land now, which will improve the quality of life for you, your children, your grandchildren and for the future of life on Earth. Please consider:

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A life-income gift (charitable gift annuity)
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Including us in your will
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A gift of stock or mutual funds
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A gift of land
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Becoming a volunteer
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Introducing us to others
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A gift of cash

For more information, contact Tiffany McKenna, director of philanthropy, at 603-224-5853, ext. 15.
Click here to find out how you can help The Nature Conservancy's conservation efforts in New Hampshire and beyond.

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About The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy's mission is to preserve the plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. The Conservancy has protected more than 98 million acres of valuable lands and waters worldwide. The organization accomplishes its mission through the efforts of state and country chapters, which are responsible for protecting and managing conservation land, and for raising operating and capital funds to support their programs.

Since establishing its first preserve here in 1964, The Nature Conservancy of New Hampshire has helped protect more than 121,000 acres of ecologically significant land and currently owns and manages 30 preserves across the state.

The Nature Conservancy in New Hampshire:

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22 Bridge St., Fourth Floor, Concord, N.H., 03301. 603-224-5853.
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Great Bay Project Office: 167 Exeter Road, Unit 1A, Newfields, N.H. 03856. 603-772-2203.
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Northern New Hampshire Project Office: P.O. Box 310, 2760 White Mt. Hwy, North Conway, NH 03860. 603-356-8833

About this e-newsletter
Granite State Glances is the electronic newsletter of The Nature Conservancy's New Hampshire Chapter. It is distributed via email on or around the 15th of every month.

All subscribers (email addresses) on this list are kept confidential and are not shared by The Nature Conservancy.

For questions about this e-newsletter, contact Eric Aldrich, The Nature Conservancy, NH Chapter, 603-224-5853, ext. 26.

To subscribe: click here