Access to wilderness is the topic of a wide-ranging 50-minute podcast that explores the history of the exclusion of indigenous peoples in public lands, the impact of wealth disparities on natural spaces and the pressing need for increased access to outdoor spaces for all.
Despite efforts to conserve land across the country, access to wilderness remains a challenge for many Americans. “A hundred million people in this country–and that’s 28 million kids–do not have a park close to home,” says Diane Regas, president of the Trust for Public Land. “Do not have a green space close to home that they can access.”
The issue also affects the indigenous peoples of the United states, who also lack access to many of their ancestors’ lands. “We often hear this phrase that the National Parks are America’s greatest idea or something to that effect,” says Dina Gilio-Whitaker, American Indian Studies Lecturer, California State University San Marcos. “But the reality of that is that native people have always inhabited these spaces. Everywhere, every square inch of this of the land on this continent was indigenous territory. They were spaces and lands that native people used for a variety of purposes.
Participants in the discussion include:
Justin Farrell Author, Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West
Dina Gilio-Whitaker American Indian Studies Lecturer, California State University San Marcos
Diane Regas President and Chief Executive Officer, The Trust for Public Land
Highstead’s Operations Director Geordie Elkins and Grounds and Facilities Coordinator Jesse Hubbard took members of the Connecticut Northeast Organic Farmers Association (CT NOFA) on a virtual tour of Highstead. With an introduction by Sefra Alexandra, Lead of CT NOFA’s Pollinator Health Initiative, the 12-minute video describes the NOFA Ecotype Seed Project as well as Highstead’s role in the project, its history on the property and its ongoing commitment to advancing plant science.
Geordie and Jesse describe the steps the seed collectors take to responsibly collect and grow the native plants, including:
Identifying a wild stand
Monitoring the site
Collecting , cleaning and stratifying the seeds
Geordie also explains how Highstead’s founding as an arboretum and commitment to plant science motivated its involvement in the project.
“At Highstead, it’s really important to us to have a place here where nature can really thrive,” says Geordie. “Part of our mission is to get others to adopt that same ethic.”
He sees this playing out in the Ecotype Seed Project. After propogating the native plants, they are provided to the nursery industry and to farmers who can then distribute them to homeowners who can turn their turf grass into a pollinator meadow.”
“That is something exciting to see,” he adds.”This landscape desert of suburbia reclaimed with natural plantings that benefit pollinators and the environment in general is really what our work is all about.”
Climate stability, clean air and water, parks and trails for outdoor experience, productive farmland, varied woodlands and wild forests, and thriving rural to urban communities—all are essential to our well-being and depend on keeping nature intact. Land protection coupled with strategic development play a vital role in conserving our environment, and are our collective responsibility. We must confront the complex environmental and social challenges facing our planet as a global community.
Highstead is a champion for land protection and thoughtful land stewardship across the Northeast, advocating for a collaborative, inclusive, and multi-sector approach to conservation to serve nature and society. Since our founding in 1982, we have evolved from a Connecticut-based arboretum into a hub of strategic innovation and collaboration among conservationists, scientists, landowners and land trusts, municipalities, philanthropists, and business leaders.Together with our growing network of regional partners, we work to realize the Wildlands & Woodlands vision, which calls for public and private collaboration with willing landowners to permanently protect by 2060 at least 70 percent of the New England landscape as forests, along with the existing 7 percent of the land currently in agriculture. With forests maintained as managed woodland and as wildlands influenced solely by natural processes, the New England landscape will become accessible to and supportive of all and will benefit both nature and people.
I invite you to learn more about our work in the region and to join with us and your local conservation partner to advance the Wildlands & Woodlands vision. Whether you’re reading our latest research or experiencing the beauty and splendor of our 100+ acres of natural woodland and meadows, we hope to inspire you to engage in and protect the natural world. Together we can ensure that future generations have healthy and sustainable places to live, work, and enjoy.
Participants in an Eagle-Eye Institute agriculture project.
COVID-19 seems like its impacting the entire planet these days, but a recent report found that people of color, families with children, and low-income communities are most likely to be deprived of the benefits that nature provides, including for their health. The study by Conservation Science Partners and commissioned by the Hispanic Access Foundation and the Center for American Progress, “The Nature Gap: Confronting Racial and Economic Disparities in the Destruction and Protection of Nature in America,” clearly outlined the health disparities experienced in communities with little access to green spaces.
The result of systemic racism going back centuries, communities of color in America are almost three times more likely than white communities to live in “nature deprived” areas. Nature deprived areas have less or no access to parks, paths, and green spaces. In Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, well over 90 percent of people of color live in heavily modified, nature-poor neighborhoods. Less than 15 percent of primarily white communities are so heavily nature deprived.
People living in nature-deprived neighborhoods are more likely to experience pollution from transportation, energy development and other industrial uses. Reduced health follows close behind. For example, residents of Black neighborhoods across the country breathe, on average, about 20 percent more harmful particles than residents of white communities do. And they contribute less to pollution – as they are less likely to drive, consume goods or take other actions that contribute to air pollution. Their lungs absorb a “pollution burden” far disproportionate to their impact on the planet. And, just a tiny rise in the amount of pollution increased the likelihood of dying from COVID-19 by 8 percent, another study noted. Others have estimated even stronger effects.
These sobering, heart-breaking statistics, made more so by the expanding pandemic, strengthen our resolve to work toward ridding racism from our own thinking, behaviors, activities, and organizations and using every opportunity to listen to, learn from, and work with partners in all communities, especially those that are currently nature-deprived.
In September 2020, the Northeast Forest Network, coordinated by Highstead Foundation, will be launching their Stand Up for Forests campaign and distributing their pilot messaging tool kit, Forests Make Us Healthier. Network members will be asked to share the kit with their constituencies asking them to amplify the message, support local conservation organizations, and vote for environmental candidates. The tool kit includes a fact sheet, social media resources, email templates, infographics, an image library, and a knowledge base with fact sheet references.
Northeast Forest Network’s ultimate goal is to increase investments in forest conservation for all communities, and to raisieawareness of the value of forests to people and nature.
Authors of the Nature Gap report recommend that we collectively seek to protect 30% of America as natural open space by 2030, which we believe is an exciting goal. We concur with its authors that more of these open spaces need to be located within and be accessible and welcoming to nature-deprived residents, and we will work with our partners and our communities to champion these efforts.
Please contact me if you wish to learn more and join us in standing up for forests and the communities that need them most.
New York City’s Brooklyn Bridge Park, blends public and private capital to broaden open space access. More neighborhoods need parks like this.
The coronavirus crisis, for the lucky among us, reintroduces the public park as a place of restoration, peace and pleasure.
In fact, parks and open space confer crucial health benefits on everyone. Those who need those benefits most often lack access to parks. That comprises a public health crisis of its own.
In this op-ed, two leaders of of the Conservation Finance Network lay out models for investing in open space for everyone and make the case for adapting these models widely and deeply to work our way out of the current crisis.
In the nation’s Covid epicenter, a well-funded park stokes wellness.
New York City’s Brooklyn Bridge Park, here on a morning during the Covid shutdown, blends public and private capital to broaden open space access. More neighborhoods need parks like thi
America has a long tradition of creating public parks and open space, from the rugged wilds of our National Parks and National Forests to the pocket park down the road from our homes. Today, in the midst of Covid-19 social distancing, those of us who are fortunate to have access to nearby open spaces are relying on them more than ever for our mental and physical health. This is thanks to the work of hundreds of local land trusts, conservation commissions, NGOs, and volunteer organizations that save these lands for our enjoyment.
In communities across the United States, it seems the wildlands and woodlands are more popular than ever. Trails and parks offer us peace, recreation, and rejuvenation. Whether you seek the song of a bird, the peep of a peeper, or the inner quiet of your thoughts, nature offers both respite from the anxiety of pandemic life and a place to stretch with family.
At least for the fortunate ones. According to the Trust for Public Land, over 100 million city-dwelling Americans have no park or open space within a 10-minute walk from their homes. And many don’t even have easy access with a short drive from their homes. This is an important public health and equity problem because research shows that access to parks has substantial health benefits.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, proximity to parks and green space has been associated with reductions in self-reported stress and depressive symptoms, and with improved attention, self-discipline, social ties, and quality of life. An analysis by the Yale School of Public Health and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies estimated that the reduced rates of chronic heart-related conditions due to access to green space saves the healthcare system $37 million per year in the greater New Haven, CT region alone. Additionally, green infrastructure in urban areas, such as street trees and streams, manages stormwater and mitigates asthma-causing air pollution.
Emerging analysis of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States shows that communities with higher levels of air pollution caused by a history of environmental injustices may be particularly susceptible to the new disease. These communities are less likely to have access to parks and well-mainted green spaces and their associated health benefits. Left unaddressed, this will continue to exacerbate the health risks to these communities long after the current crisis fades.
Conservation contributes in so many environmental and economic ways to our communities, yet public investments in preserving open space are wholly insufficient. In response, we see innovation and action from public, private, and nonprofit groups working to increase the financial resources available for public open space creation and management. This is a testament to the ability of the conservation community to think creatively and engage new stakeholders to fund their work. At the Conservation Finance Network, we are privileged to feature these organizations in our trainings and resources as they address the intertwined issues of community health, equity, and access to open space in holistic and durable ways.
For example, the Willamette Partnership in Portland, OR, developed a guide for land trusts and conservation groups to make the case for the public health benefits of their work to audiences interested in developing and funding health initiatives. The Freshwater Land Trust in Birmingham, AL, received funding from the Centers for Disease Control to develop a master plan for greenways that has protected regional waterways while providing bicycle and pedestrian infrastructures that promote active and healthy living.
Through the Parks with Purpose program, The Conservation Fund acquires land on behalf of cities to establish parks in urban areas. The Conservation Fund then works with the communities not only to restore the land, but also to implement benefits such as green infrastructure for flood management and the remediation of air and water pollution.
Carbon markets also have promise for putting money on the ground for community conservation work. California awarded Fresno $66 million in proceeds through its carbon cap-and-trade program to cut emissions in the city’s disadvantaged communities. It will build walking trails and bike paths. Austin and Washington’s King County are testing carbon credits for planting and protecting urban trees by working with the NGO City Forest Credits.
Our parks, natural areas, and open spaces help make up the fabric of our communities. Yet we often do not notice them until we need them most. While medical professionals bravely respond to the pandemic, our local conservationists remain busy tending to one of our best preventative medicines: our shared opportunity to enjoy nature. Let us remember how much we rely on our open spaces and parks in this time of need, now and long after this crisis ends. When we take care of the land, it takes care of us.
This op-ed was originally published on Conservation Finance Network.org Allegra Wrocklage is Program Manager at the Conservation Finance Network. Spencer Meyer is Senior Conservationist at the Highstead Foundation.
Eagle Mountain Wilderness Preserve in Chesterfield, NY, owned by Northeast Wilderness Trust. | Photo by Brendan Wiltse
Northeast Wilderness Trust has launched a new initiative to accelerate the pace of wilderness conservation across New England and New York. The Wildlands Partnership offers local land trusts the resources to work on wilderness conservation while receiving periodic income through a developing wilderness carbon market.
Based in Montpelier, VT, Northeast Wilderness Trust is the only regional land trust focused exclusively on conserving forever-wild land—places where nature directs the ebb and flow of life. Since its founding in 2002, the Trust has conserved more than 35,000 forever-wild acres in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.
The purpose of the Wildlands Partnership is to take immediate, tangible action to confront today’s most pressing environmental crises: climate change and mass extinction. “Our goal is to ignite a renewed conversation around wildlands protection—between land trusts, philanthropists, and the general public. We aim to work with local land trusts to protect 10,000 acres as wilderness across the Northeast over the next three years,” said Sophie Ehrhardt, Wildlands Partnership Coordinator.
Partnering with Northeast Wilderness Trust in this effort is Wildlands & Woodlands, an initiative coordinated by Highstead Foundation and the Harvard Forest. To realize a resilient future anchored in a traditional land-based economy while also protecting biodiversity, the Wildlands & Woodlands vision calls for forests to be conserved across 70% of New England by 2060—and for 7% of the landscape to be preserved as wildlands. Less than 3% of New England and the entire Northeast is currently wilderness, underscoring the imperative for wilderness preservation.
Northeast Wilderness Trust is unique among conservation organizations in the Northeast in its focus on wildlands.
David Foster
“Northeast Wilderness Trust is unique among conservation organizations in the Northeast in its focus on wildlands,” said David Foster, Highstead Foundation President. “Given this focus and experience they are perfectly positioned to collaborate with land trusts and other organizations to increase the pace of wilderness conservation to address the immediate challenges posed by climate change and support Wildlands & Woodlands’ long-term goals.”
The benefits of unmanaged, wild forests for clean water and air, carbon storage, and wildlife habitat are enormous. “Northeast Wilderness Trust’s mission is to protect forever-wild landscapes, for nature and people,” said Jon Leibowitz, Executive Director of the Wilderness Trust. “On lands we conserve, you’ll see very little management—often none at all. Trees get old, fall over, and add rich complexity to the forest, creating beautiful and unique habitats often missing from managed landscapes. Each place we protect today has the potential to be a future old-growth forest.”
Northeast Wilderness Trust is already beginning conservation work on the ground with local land trusts. Through the Partnership, the Wilderness Trust covers land trusts’ staff time and other expenses associated with wilderness conservation, while also offering technical support and expertise. “We have raised $800,000 towards the first phase of this effort, and are working to raise another $800,000,” said Mr. Leibowitz.
In exchange for financial and technical support, land trusts provide the Wilderness Trust with a connection to their local communities and knowledge of their landscape. Together, partners will work to shift the narrative around wilderness conservation in the Northeast, one community at a time. “The Wildlands partnership offers a streamlined, cost-effective way for land trusts to add another dimension to their work while doing what they do best: saving places for future generations,” said Sophie Ehrhardt.
Partner land trusts can also choose to enroll wildlands conserved through the Partnership in the Wilderness Trust’s Wild Carbon program. In 2010, Northeast Wilderness Trust pioneered a developing market for carbon credits derived from privately protected wilderness. As part of the Wildlands Partnership, they are aiming to help other land trusts receive long-term and stable financial benefits by choosing to set aside permanently protected wilderness.
As a natural climate solution, wild forests act as a carbon sink and continue sequestering and storing carbon indefinitely. This makes them attractive candidates on the carbon market for companies looking to offset their business practices in ways that make a concrete difference. The Wild Carbon program is the first of its kind in the Northeast because it aggregates wilderness properties across state lines and landowners, making it possible for even small land trusts to receive carbon revenue.
The Partnership will strategically prioritize landscapes that offer wildlife the possibility of movement and resilience in the face of a changing climate. Together, partners will collaborate to develop and realize a vision for conservation that includes protected, wild forests within a landscape that is otherwise largely dedicated to human uses.
Learn more about the Wildlands Partnership and how your local conservation group can get involved by visiting www.newildernesstrust.org/wp or contacting Sophie Ehrhardt at sophie@newildernesstrust.org or 802.224.1000.
With Highstead closed for all but essential visitors, wildlife still abounds. Here are a few photos captured with traditional and trail cameras around the grounds of Highstead.
A coyote at night on the lookout, via a trail camera.
A bobcat explores the woodlands around Highstead. Photo captured via trail camera.
New England Forestry Foundation (NEFF) announced the official launch of its Forest-to-Cities Climate Challenge, NEFF’s newest initiative and a key component of their climate program. It calls on participants to help reduce the climate crisis and create a more livable New England by joining forces to maximize the climate benefits of forests and wood construction.
Photo courtesy of New England Forestry Foundation
According to NEFF, “The initiative is an explicitly cooperative undertaking that calls on humanity’s ability to enact change through collective movements.”
The Climate Challenge asks stakeholders—from the forests where the wood is grown to the cities where people will live in tall wood buildings—to voice unified support by signing a simple pledge. The pledge articulates how we can use New England’s forests and mass timber construction to grow, build, and live in a way that combats climate change and benefits both rural and urban communities:
We support using New England’s forests and building with wood to fight climate change.
New England Forestry Foundation
Each segment of the supply chain has a unique role to play in helping bring this vision to reality—landowners and foresters can commit to practicing climate-friendly forestry, architects can educate clients about the aesthetic and environmental benefits of mass timber, and policy-makers can develop incentives that will drive the use of more sustainable construction materials. NEFF is working to foster a community among the growing group of people who have signed the Forest-to-Cities pledge to identify the common actions that will place sustainably-sourced mass timber at the heart of hundreds of new construction projects in our region.
NEFF’s ultimate goal is to help shape an economic system that links mass timber buildings in New England with the local forests that sustainably generate the wood for them. Highstead Foundation President David Foster was one of the authors of a New York Times Op-Ed that highlighted the advantages of building with local timber.
Founder plots at The Hickories Farm, Ridgefield, Connecticut. Photo by Sefra Alexandra.
When the state of Connecticut passed “An Act Concerning Pollinator Health” to expand pollinator habitat in the state, it called for the elimination of certain pesticides on plants and seeds and emphasized the use of native, organically-grown flowers. It also created a dilemma for landscapers and land managers: Where to source a large quantity of native wildflowers? Highstead saw an opportunity to help increase the availability of native seed.
Native plant seedlings growing in the Highstead greenhouse.
Most ‘native’ plants sold at local nurseries originate from one of a few large nursery suppliers in the Midwest and the plants are not always well adapted to the Northeast. Locally sourced native seeds and plants are scarce, but conservation lands throughout the region host vibrant native plant populations.
Building infrastructure to support the production of local ecotype plants is a larger task than any one organization can take on alone. The Highstead team set out to partner with various groups to help advance the project. Each partner plays a critical role working within their area of expertise. Highstead scouts for naturally occurring plant populations and works with lands trusts and private landowners to secure permission and collect the seed. The Northeast Organic Farming Association of Connecticut (CT-NOFA) recruits and trains farmers to grow seed crops. Planters’ Choice Nursery is a wholesale grower and propagator that grows the seed on a large scale and sells finished plants to landscapers, Pollinator Pathway groups, and conservation organizations doing landscape restoration projects.
Collecting seeds in a meadow.
Given its history as a native plant arboretum, Highstead staff have the skill and knowledge to identify and confirm genetically diverse populations of native plants and to carefully and ethically harvest seeds. Written permission from the landowner is required to harvest native seed and every collection is documented so its origins can be confirmed. As a conservation organization, the Highstead team adheres to strict seed collecting guidelines that ensure enough seed remains in the wild for habitat regeneration and consumption by wildlife.
Once collected, the seed is cleaned and Highstead staff experiment with growing the seed to document germination and growing protocols for each species. The initial crop of plants and seed is then distributed with growing instructions to non-profits, governmental agencies, farmers, or nurseries committed to growing and maintaining crops of stock plants for future native seed harvesting and plant production purposes. Building a native plant pipeline will help make local ecotype plants and seeds available for pollinator gardens and landscape restoration projects that will expand healthy pollinator habitat in Connecticut and the surrounding region.
Victor DeMasi (l) and Sammy Riccio collect pollinators at Highstead.
Victor DeMasi
During the summer of 2020, Highstead began participating in an intensive pollinator survey in its meadow. The survey at Highstead is part of a larger study in Redding, Connecticut, that aims to document the existing diversity of pollinators in local meadows and document what plant species they are associated with.
“There is a surprisingly small amount of information about pollinators on the local level.”
Geordie Elkins, Highstead Operations Director
The survey is being conducted by noted lepidopterist Victor Demasi and biologist Sammy Riccio, both Redding residents, and Highstead’s Operations Director Geordie Elkins.
The data gathered will serve as both a catalog of existing pollinators — everything from bees to moths and butterflies to hummingbirds and more — and as a baseline for future research. Most pollinator surveys in the area have focused on capturing data over the course of an intensive day or two. The Redding census is a sustained project over the entire summer.
“Despite the growing interest in pollinators and widespread recommendations to plant pollinator gardens,” says Elkins. “There is a surprisingly small amount of information about pollinators on the local level.” The project will increase the understanding of what species exist in the local landscape and what meadow plants they utilize.
At the end of the summer, Riccio will take the lead on classifying the pollinators they identified. The collection will be donated to the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University.
