In 2021, the Woodlands Partnership and New England Forestry Foundation were awarded a U.S. Forest Service Urban and Community Forestry grant for a three-year project — “Rivers Run Through It: Restoring Floodplain Forest and Riparian Buffers in Mohawk Trail Woodlands Partnership Town Centers and River Junctions”
This effort involved a commissioned Plan by Conway School of Landscape Design students to identify and rank riparian restoration sites in the region. As a result, there will be at least four demonstration sites for tree-planting in the Deerfield and Hoosic River watersheds that represent the rivers’ intersections with the built environment, and the planting of at least 150 climate-adapted trees.
A matching state EOEEA Woodlands Partnership regional grant funded a pilot riparian restoration site at South River Meadow in Conway, where 65 trees and shrubs were planted with deer protection; as well as public outreach about community goals and funding of climate resilience stewardship plans for municipally owned forests — including Notch Reservoir in North Adams, Fox Brook Reservoir in Shelburne and Colrain, and Pelham Lake Park in Rowe.
