Bolton
Land Trust Musing – February, 2012
Lifelong Learning
One of the
exciting things about leading the Bolton Land Trust is that I’m always
ankle-deep in a never-ending stream of new information and interesting ways to
learn it. Right now the land trust is in the middle of a project in which
directors are learning side-by-side with students from the Yale School of
Forestry and Environmental Studies.
Last fall the
Bolton Land Trust land trust was awarded a $5,600 grant from the Connecticut Land Trust Challenge Fund, administered by the
Connecticut Land Conservation Council in partnership with the Land Trust
Alliance. This collaborative effort to increase the pace and quality of
land conservation is made possible by the generous support of the Connecticut
Community Foundation, The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, and the Jessie
B. Cox Charitable Lead Trust.
The grant has
an educational component: it encourages directors to learn the tools needed to
become better land stewards. Hunter Brawley, an experienced consultant who has
worked with many land trusts, will teach directors and volunteers how to write a
baseline documentation report, or BDR. A BDR is a description of a property at
a point in time which documents the land’s conservation values, vegetation,
wildlife, possible boundary violations and other pertinent information. BDRs will
be reference points each year when we monitor our properties for any change in
conditions.
Learning
right alongside directors and volunteers are two students from Yale’s Strategies
in Land Conservation class, Luke McKay and John Whitney. Luke and John’s
assignment here in Bolton is to prepare a BDR on the Loomis Road easement, and
they’ve gotten a solid start on it. One of the Bolton Land Trust’s stewardship
goals is to complete BDRs for all properties, so John and Luke’s work will give
them a real-life conservation experience and will provide an important service
to the land trust.
It is a pleasure
working with Luke and John, thoughtful, polite and engaged people, and
interesting to hear their perspectives on conservation. Luke already understands
the people-land connection:
“Personally, I'm very attracted to the human side of
conservation and the many different values people express through their
relationship with the land. With that
said, one of the main reasons I came to Yale was to better understand the
ecological side of conservation. I think
this class teaches in a professional setting how land conservation
organizations incorporate these different values into their work.”
John, about
to graduate from the MBA program, already has an appreciation for how land preservation
requires a long-term, big picture view as well as a focus on the local details:
“Modern conservation organizations tackle projects
comparable in complexity to commercial real-estate transactions, and as a
result they must depend on the expertise (and often the generosity) of lawyers,
scientists, politicians, communication specialists, fundraisers and financial
professionals. As such, conservation projects benefit greatly from strong
leadership, consistent management and long-range strategic planning—all
hallmarks of the MBA skillset. … My own
interests are in conservation on a large scale, both domestic and
international, but I also recognize the enormous importance of work done on the
local level. The principles taught in the course at Yale, and the experience I
gain working with the Bolton Land Trust, will no doubt serve me well for years
to come.”
Luke and John
are learning alongside us in the field, and we’re learning alongside them in
the field and in the classroom (Richard Treat and Jim Pendergrast attended one
of their class lectures). All these students, whose ages span four decades, are
energized by the same goal, and Bolton and the communities where John and Luke
settle will be better for it.
Gwen