Including Your Land in Your Financial Plans
WILLIAMSTOWN RURAL LANDS
671 Cold Spring Rd, Williamstown, MA
Join us for a discussion and Q&A with Mark Robinson, Executive Director of The Compact of Cape Cod Conservation Trusts; Steve Pagnotta, Attorney at Donovan, O’Connor and Dodig, LLP; and landowners who have successfully conserved their land.
Learn about tools that can help to accomplish your goals, whether they are minimizing taxes, generating lifetime income, passing property to the next generation, or conserving all or part of your land.
Hawley Woods Walk
Saturday, May 4, 10am – noon
Join us in Hawley for a woods walk showcasing a variety of management decisions focused on climate, habitat, family & legacy, and personal stewardship.
Including Your Land in Your Estate Plan: A Workshop for Woodlands Owners
INCLUDING YOUR LAND IN YOUR ESTATE PLAN: A WORKSHOP FOR WOODLAND OWNERS
Thursday April 25, 2024
5:00-7:00 p.m.
Franklin Land Trust
5 Mechanic St. Shelburne Falls
Setting Goals for Your Land: A Virtual Workshop for Woodland Owners
Join us for a virtual discussion with landowners and land managers to learn about options for caring for your land now and into the future. Identify ways to steward your land that reflect your needs, values and interests. Speakers will share resources, contacts and guidance for setting priorities to support your land stewardship plans. Leave with inspiration about how to get started or take the next step on your ownership journey!
Woodlands Partnership Winter Board Meeting
Tree Planting in Shelburne Falls
COME PLANT TREES!
Sunday, October 29
10am-2pm
Buckland-Shelburne
Elementary School
75 Mechanic St. Shelburne Falls
Indigenous Ecology & Land Stewardship Panel
Successfully stewarding our region’s forests requires that we find ways to learn from, support, and cooperate with Indigenous Ecology and Land Stewardship. To support ongoing conversations about collaboration in land stewardship and ecology, the Ohketeau Cultural Center and the Forest Climate Resilience Program held an Indigenous Ecology and Land Stewardship Panel in the spring of 2023.
Spring 2023 Woods Walks
Join The Forest Climate Resilience Program Woods Walks
Forest Health and Climate Resilience
Members of the public are invited to attend a series of woods walks, focused on forest health and climate resilience, across Northwest Massachusetts. Woods walks will be led by a Mass Audubon Ecologist, the local Forester, and a member of The Ohketeau Cultural Center. Please register to attend each event:
Rowe Woods Walk, April 29th, 11 am – 1pm, register here
Conway Woods Walk, May 6th, 11am – 1 pm, register here
Shelburne Falls Fire District Woods Walk, May 20th, 11 am – 1 pm, register here
Heath Woods Walk, details to be announced.
You may also register or find out more by reaching out to Andrew Randazzo, Forest Ecologist with Mass Audubon at arandazzo@massaudubon.org or 413-252-9534. Program interpretation is available upon advanced request.
The Forest Climate Resilience Program is led by Mass Audubon in partnership with the Woodlands Partnership of Northwest Massachusetts, Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science, Massachusetts Woodlands Institute, the Nature Conservancy and the New England Forestry Foundation. The integration of traditional ecological knowledge into the program is led by the Ohketeau Cultural Center. The program assists municipalities in planning and implementing practices that help forests cope with climate extremes (adaptation) while also locking away greenhouse gases that cause climate change (mitigation).
This pilot program provides technical assistance and support to municipalities in the 21-town region of the Woodlands Partnership of Northwest Massachusetts, which is also exploring the need for a physical multi-purpose Forest Center to be located within the region. The Virtual Forest Center is funded thorough a Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Regional Action Grant, led by the Town of Rowe. The MVP grant program provides cities and towns in Massachusetts with funding to implement the priority actions identified through the planning process.
Waste or Resource? A Panel Discussion on Wood Residue
The Woodlands Partnership of Northwest Massachusetts hosted this public webinar on February 2, 2023.
Joining this discussion is Ben Kargère of Williams College, who shares findings from his study on how wood residue is being handled in the Northwest Massachusetts region, Andre Strong Bear Heart Gaines, Jr., a citizen of the Nipmuc people, Sean Mahoney of the Department of Conservation and Recreation, Jay Healy of Hall Tavern Farm, and Emily Boss of the Massachusetts Woodlands Institute. The discussion focuses primarily on potential uses of woody debris or residue in the region: low-value woody materials that are often a byproduct of town utility or roadway maintenance or sawmill operations that cannot or should not be left in place. These materials often have low value in the current marketplace, though there may be creative and beneficial uses for the material within the community.
Climate Change and Forest Management 101
The Woodlands Partnership of Northwest Massachusetts hosted this public webinar on January 25, 2023.
The webinar features Alexandra Kosiba, PhD, who addresses how climate change and other stressors pose a threat to our forests and how we can think about and manage forests to bolster their resilience and adaptation to change. Kosiba discusses how forests help us mitigate climate change by absorbing and storing carbon dioxide and the important tradeoffs we need to keep in mind.
Alexandra (Ali) Kosiba is a forest ecophysiologist and Extension Assistant Professor of Forestry at the University of Vermont. As the Extension Forester, she creates resources and conducts applied research to help woodland owners, foresters, and decision-makers better understand the impacts of climate change and other stressors on Vermont’s forests and management techniques to improve forest resilience. A licensed forester, Ali serves as a regional educator on forest carbon science and management and is the state lead on the Vermont Forest Carbon Inventory. She also works on various forest health topics, like planning and management for at-risk tree species, land planning for maintaining critical forest services, and forest monitoring. Before coming to UVM, she was the Climate Forester for the State of Vermont, Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation – and the first climate forester in the nation.
