Cross-border Conservation Gifts Return $1.5 Million to Vermont

Challenge Fund Spurs Gifts to Canada and the Caribbean

Montpelier, Vermont—13 December 2004—Contributions from Vermont donors to international conservation projects have brought $1.5 million back to Vermont. This is made possible by grants from philanthropist Robert Wilson, who matches major donations made to Nature Conservancy priorities outside Vermont. Mr Wilson’s matching dollars are then used to fund conservation projects in Vermont.

The Nature Conservancy of Canada announced today the acquisition of 460 acres of Clarenceville Bog, one of the largest peatlands in the Lake Champlain region. The acquisition was financed in part by a special $200,000 gift from a Nature Conservancy donor in Vermont. This qualifies the Conservancy’s Vermont chapter for a matching $200,000 Wilson Challenge grant that comes back to Vermont, and will be used for conserving and restoring important habitat in the Champlain Valley.

Vermonters have designated contributions, totaling over $300,000, to support a debt-for-nature swap agreement in Jamaica. Spearheaded by The Nature Conservancy this agreement retires debt between the governments of the United States and Jamaica, establishing a fund to protect the island’s forests. Jamaica provides critical winter habitat for many of Vermont’s summer songbirds, like the Bicknell’s thrush. The matching Wilson Challenge grant coming back to Vermont is funding conservation projects throughout the state.

"Supporting international conservation projects can double a donor’s money," said Bob Klein, Director of the Vermont chapter of The Nature Conservancy. "With matching dollars coming back to underwrite conservation work here in Vermont, it makes good sense to help with conservation beyond our borders."

International gifts from Vermont donors have funded the protection of cloud forests in Guatemala, a wildlife refuge in Costa Rica, new marine reserves in the Bahamas, sustainable forestry in the Dominican Republic, and research on reef fish spawning in the Virgin Islands.

Clarenceville Bog

This sprawling peatland is the headwaters for Mud Creek, a stream that flows into Mud Creek Marsh in Alburg, just south of the U.S./Canada border. Clarenceville Bog is home to many rare and threatened species, including the Massachusetts’s fern, the yellow Virginia, and the least bittern. The southern reaches of the marsh are important for breeding waterfowl, including the black tern, least bittern, and pied-billed grebe. For over a decade, The Nature Conservancy’s Vermont chapter has worked to preserve Mud Creek Marsh on the Vermont side of the border, donating 130 acres to the state’s Mud Creek Wildlife Management Area. Now a Vermont donor has helped Canadian conservationists secure Clarenceville Bog, the northern end of this same wetland complex.

Jamaican Debt-for-Nature Swap Agreement

Over the next decade and a half, Jamaica’s new debt-for-nature swap will direct $16 million toward conservation of the island’s forests. Jamaica’s central mountains provide some of the Caribbean’s most critical forest habitat for birds. Of the 33 common bird species found there, 26 are unique to the island. Many of Vermont’s summer songbirds spend the winter months there, including the black-throated blue warbler, the black-and-white warbler, the ovenbird, the northern waterthrush, and the American redstart. One of Vermont’s rarest birds, the Bicknell’s Thrush, migrates along the coastline of the US to over winter in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains.

"The migration of songbirds through Vermont marks the changing of the seasons, the onset of winter and the welcome arrival of spring," said Warren King, naturalist and former chair of the Audubon Council of Vermont. "Vermont is a significant breeding ground for the black-throated blue warbler, and we bear a great responsibility for its health and vitality. To ensure their survival we must be concerned with conservation beyond our own borders."

During the summer months keep your eyes and ears open for the black-throated blue warbler, commonly found in the forests of Vermont. The male is easily identified with his strikingly patterned plumage and distinctive call, often said to resemble the phrase, ‘please-please-SQUEEZE-me’.