The 26th annual Massachusetts Land Conservation Conference was held today at Worcester Technical High School, and by any measure, it was successful in bringing together the land trust community for dissemination of ideas and fruitful discussion of problems and practices.  As registration began at 8 am, and the last session ended at 4, it was a busy day for all of us, the 83 speakers, 30 exhibitors, and over 500 conference attendees.

At 8:45 am, Marylynn Gentry, the Interim Executive Director of the Mass Last Trust Coalition, introduced Andrew Bowman, President of the Land Trust Alliance.  Mr Bowman is actually the very new president, who explained why he moved from the West Coast to DC to take the job: he wanted to work with capable and passionate people; without partisan gridlock he saw opportunities to get things done; and he could serve society because land conservation offers solutions.  He asked the land trusts to concentrate on what he called the 4 Rs: Be relevant to communities, Consider the rate of open space loss, Focus on resilience, and Offer rigorous, science-grounded solutions.

Former lead scientist of The Nature Conservancy, the keynote speaker M Sanjayan was entertaining, enlightening, and inspiring.  He told us a little about his background and training as a biologist and then discussed the relationship of humans to nature and how we can make that relationship work on both sides of the divide.  By using the example of Lake Malawi in East Africa, he demonstrated that human impacts on the environment often have unintended and dire consequences for people: when intensive near-shore fishing decimated the cichlid population, bilharzia infections increased.  He also emphasized that the scale of our impacts can be enormous, for good or for ill.  We can castigate our consumer society, but we can also attempt mitigation; Starbucks, for example, has committed to a supply chain of sustainably-grown coffee.  Finally, Dr Sanjayan urged us to consider how we are perceived as messengers; as conservation-minded individuals and groups, we need to consider the best way to get our message across to specific audiences.

Following the keynote, we dispersed to the 90-minute workshops; Session 1 was scheduled for 10:15-11:45; after lunch, Session 2 was scheduled for 12:45 to 2:15 and Session 3 for 2:30 to 4.  When I pre-registered, I indicated interest in particular sessions, but like most attendees, I made some last minute changes.  In the morning, I went to Envirothon & Land Trusts: Inspiring Conservation Leaders, and in the afternoon, Best Practices to Control Invasive Species on Conservation Lands and Bay Circuit & Greenway: Past, Present, and Future.

I had heard a bit about Envirothon, but to tell the truth, I didn’t know much about it.  Here’s a short explanation: Envirothon is an environmental education competition for high school students, sponsored on the national level by the National Conservation Foundation.  The website for the Massachusetts competition says that it emphasizes hands-on, team-oriented problem-solving and community involvement.  Teams prepare all year and then compete against each other at the end of spring semester; this year 250 students from 30 high schools will converge at Hopkinton State Park on May 12th.  They will share what they’ve learned about invasive species and also what they’ve learned about soils, water, forests, and wildlife.  On the panel this morning, we heard from three teams, some from schools which have participated for many years.  Katie O’Donnell of the Plymouth-based Wildlands Trust worked with a new team from Brockton High School, one of the largest high schools east of the Mississippi.  Service Learning Coordinator Reshma Patel of East Quabbin Land Trust, together with the Trust’s Executive Director Cynthia Henshaw, worked with students from the Quabbin Regional High School, which has sent a team to the competition for 20 years.  Jennifer Ohop, former president of Opacum Land Trust and a staff naturalist at the Norcross Wildlife Sanctuary, worked with the Monson Environmental Action Team, which has been participating since 2005.  All of the participants in Envirothon agreed that it was challenging but very rewarding.  The Massachusetts program emphasizes community engagement and has also encouraged young people to consider studying environmental science in college and prepare for careers in conservation.

Quite a few more people were at my first afternoon session: Jonathan Regosin of the Mass NHESP and Michelle Ruby of the Groton Conservation Trust spoke on best practices for controlling invasive species; they each presented in the format of case studies.  The Groton Conservation Trust was founded in 1964, and in the early years, they focused on land acquisition, whereas more recently, they have been concerned with land management.  As with other land trusts in our state, they are grappling with the issue of invasive species and came up with a plan to assess the efficacy of different methods of species removal.  They picked two sites for the experiment: a 1.1 acre plot in the Bates Land which was overrun with honeysuckle, and an 0.8 acre plot at Shepley Hill infested with barberry.  They tried three treatment types, mechanical, cut stem herbicide, and foliar spray herbicide, and reviewed the costs and benefits of each method.  The results were interesting, but not entirely surprising: the mechanical method took the most time but did reduce the density of the targeted species; there was some re-sprouting after 1 year, but native species persisted; soil disturbance was a concern, however.  The cut-stem method was less time-intensive and more effective for moderate-sized stems rather than small stems or very large stems; there was a mixed effect on native species; and follow-up treatment was necessary.  The foliar-spray method was least time-consuming and did reduce the density of invasives; there was some loss of native plants; some species were resistant to the herbicide.  From these experiments, the land trust concluded that their approach must be flexible; they must recognize that eradication is impossible and repeated treatments are necessary.  The initial treatment is the most labor and cost-intensive, but subsequent treatments are easier; a hybrid strategy is probably best.  As is always the case, there are trade-offs between costs and benefits; one has to set priorities and focus on achievable goals.

Mr Regosin presented numerous case studies of invasive species eradication projects that his DFW group was tasked with completing, due to the threats posed by invasives to endangered species; they had to prioritize and also consider each site on its own merits.  He described what the State did at the Noquochoke WMA near Dartmouth, the Poland Brook WMA in Conway and Ashfield, the Kampoosa Fen WMA in Stockbridge, Agawam Lake WMA in Stockbridge, and other sites.  In the case of the Dartmouth grasslands, they uprooted everything and replanted; the site can now be maintained by fire and also by mowing.  In Conway/Ashfield, the old fields were overrun by multiflora rose, autumn olive, and buckthorn; they did mowing, tree removal, prescribed grazing, and used herbicide.  Kampoosa Bog, a calcareous wetland near the Mass Pike and Route 7, was overrun with phragmites; at this site, they worked with the DOT and ended up using herbicides, but they were successful in preserving rare plants.  At another of the calcareous sloping fen sites in Berkshire Country, they addressed the beaver situation, controlled non-native vegetation but also the native cattails, and returned fire to the area.  Mr Regosin concluded his presentation by telling us that early detection and rapid response is important, that we should carefully choose our methods, that herbicides can be a useful tool, that wetlands are not off-limits to vegetation eradication programs, and that we need to follow through for years, so that our initial investment is not wasted.

There were about a dozen of us at my last session on the Bay Circuit Trail.  The panel members included Terry Cook and Vin Antil of the Trustees of Reservations and Kristin Sykes and Liz Armstrong of the Bay Circuit Alliance.  As with Envirothon, I knew only a little about this subject, mainly because I’m a member of the Appalachian Mountain Club and I heard it mentioned in their publications.  Basically, the Bay Circuit Trail is a 230 mile trail that runs in a wide circle around the Boston metropolitan area, from Plum Island in the north to Duxbury and Kingston Bay in the south.  Passing through 37 towns, it connects conservation lands and trail networks and is accessible to over four million users, whether they are trail runners, parents with strollers, or dog walkers.  The idea of long distance trails was pioneered by Benton MacKaye, who lived for a while in Shirley, and, in fact, the Bay Circuit Trail was first conceived of in the 1920s as a kind of outer Emerald Necklace.  However, work on the trail languished until the 1980s when interest revived.  In 1990, the Bay Circuit Alliance was formed to move the idea forward.  In 2012, the AMC and the Trustees of Reservations began working together on the project to complete, enhance, and permanently protect the trail.  There is now a three person board which meets quarterly, an advisory committee, and a trail committee; five-year goals have been set.

Vin Antil spoke first; he is a GIS specialist who undertook a mapping project to determine how complete trail is, how much of the trail is on roads, and how much runs through land that is secured and protected.  This was a three-step process: he gathered statistics and updated maps, he did an on road/off road analysis and compared this with Mass DOT data, and he did a parcel analysis which looked at property ownership and conservation status (these maps can be overlaid for more refined analysis).  Local groups were provided with the updated parcel list, and the mapping information was placed online in ArcGIS format.

Liz Armstrong, a volunteer from North Andover, then talked about working in the BCT’s Region 2, which encompasses Georgetown, Boxford, North Andover, Middleton, and Andover.  Her group worked particularly hard on the St Francis Trail which runs along the Merrimack River.  Each town in her region, she emphasized, was different.  For example, in Middleton, parts of the trail run through private property, and the single owner was not particularly happy about it, due to liability issues.  He was more receptive to the idea when the trails committee told him about Chapter 21, Section 17c, which limits liability of property owners who agree to allow public access for trails.  In Andover, the trails committee had to deal with five major private land owners, and there were not good alternatives for re-routing the trail; thus the trail there is at risk.  In contrast, in Boxford the eleven affected property owners are private homeowners, who have mostly agreed to provide a right-of-way for the trail with handshake agreements.  In conclusion, Ms Armstrong presented these lessons learned: don’t believe everything the maps tell you, never assume the existing trail is permitted, understand that access agreements are not forever rights, call on town planners and open space committees for assistance, and if you can find land trusts that regularly purchase land, ask them to work with you on completing transactions that will allow these trails to be permanently protected.