Adirondack Land Trust

??? WE'RE HIRING! The Adirondack Land Trust seeks a Land Protection Manager who is a detail-oriented, creative, and experienced professional to lead our land protection work. The Adirondack Land Trust's projects range in size and complexity and often involve coordinating with public and private partners and funders. The Land Protection Manager will be principally responsible for overseeing the majority of our fee-simple and conservation easement transactions from inception to closing. This position will work closely with our conservation team to identify and evaluate projects and determine the best conservation outcome for each property. They will lead our landowner engagement efforts, represent the Adirondack Land Trust to key constituencies, help identify funding sources and build collaborative partnerships. In addition, as an organization that prioritizes collaboration and individual initiative, this individual will participate in varying degrees with the Adirondack Land Trust's other departments and initiatives as their skills, time and interests allow. Full job description: https://lnkd.in/gSrtYzYt

The Adirondack Land Trust will host a free virtual event on Wednesday, February 26, from 7 to 8 p.m. EST where Brett McLeod of Paul Smith's College will share his experiences with a woodland homestead, making land productive, and living more self-sufficiently.? ? “How an individual cares for land has an impact on the overall health of our ecosystems and our communities,” says Adirondack Land Trust Conservation Program Director Christopher Jage. “Brett’s hands-on experience balancing human needs, forest condition, and soil health will get us all thinking about what we can do in our own backyard.”? ? McLeod will share his endeavors to create a 25-acre woodland homestead in the rugged Adirondack Mountains. He began this project in 2004 with a plan scratched into the mud, gradually building a small, diversified farm that produces vegetables, fruit, syrup, livestock, and lumber for shelter, fences, and firewood.?? ? Sign up for this free virtual event at https://lnkd.in/efFrhZkk.? ? “Woodland homesteading shows us the power of what’s possible with our own two hands and a scrap of land,” says McLeod. “Everything I do can be shrunken down in scale and put into practice. You may not have a woodland orchard, but you could have a fruit tree.”? ? McLeod is a professor of forestry at Paul Smith’s College and the author of The Woodland Homestead: How to Make Your Land More Productive and Live More Self-Sufficiently in the Woods. He likes to relax by reading a good book or chopping wood—sure signs of a dynamic storyteller ready to entertain and inform with the highs and lows of his homesteading endeavors.? ? The Adirondack Land Trust works to forever conserve the forests, farmlands, waters, and wild places that advance quality of life and ecological integrity in the Adirondacks. Since 1984, the land trust has protected 28,332 acres at 108 sites in 43 towns and 11 counties throughout the Adirondacks, including ongoing conservation partnerships with 89 private landowners.??

Thank you Adirondack Explorer and David Escobar for sharing Birdability's work to make birding and nature more accessible for people with disabilities and other health challenges. We were proud to share Birdability's work with an Adirondack audience in a free virtual event last week.

Welcome to the Next Generation Council Olivia! We're so excited to have your voice and perspective helping to shape conservation in the Adirondacks for future generations.

Join us for a free virtual event on January 28! We're excited to host Birdability Executive Director Cat Fribley and founder Virginia Rose as they share their passion for birding and their work to enhance access and inclusivity for birdwatchers with disability and other health challenges. “Birdability: Enhancing Access to Birding & Nature”?is a free virtual event hosted by the Adirondack Land Trust on Tuesday, January 28, from 7 to 8 p.m.?EST. Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/efRS4q8W

With great sadness, we share that Elizabeth “Betsy” Folwell, a member of the Adirondack Land Trust Board of Directors, passed away at her home in Blue Mountain Lake on January 5. She was 71. For nearly 50 years, Betsy was a friend and champion of the people, communities, and natural world of the Adirondacks. Her love of this place survives in her many writings and contributions to the arts, history, businesses, and cultural institutions of the Adirondacks. The Adirondack Land Trust sends our deepest condolences to Betsy’s husband, Tom Warrington, to the countless people who knew and loved Betsy, and to the thousands of readers whose passion for the Adirondacks was strengthened by her life’s work. Betsy’s voice will echo forever throughout the lands, waters, wild places, and hearts of the Adirondacks. To learn more about Betsy’s life and work, please visit this week’s reporting from the Adirondack Explorer and North Country Public Radio. https://lnkd.in/eqf7J_NP https://lnkd.in/eJszEutg?

Say hello to a few wild neighbors! The Adirondack Land Trust's conservation work helps wildlife by keeping habitat intact so they can find food and shelter and roam freely in search of mates. Our stewardship team uses trail cameras to monitor wildlife and make informed decisions about how we manage land for conservation.

As the Adirondack Land Trust celebrates 40 years, we're reminded that clean water, healthy forests, and wildlife habitat are easy to take for granted in the Adirondacks. That’s why it is so important for conservation work to continue, to adapt, to evolve. Half a century ago, land conservation focused overwhelmingly on wild places. With time, how people relate to landscapes was factored into conservation planning, and land trusts emerged nationwide to ensure working farms and forests and community needs were part of the process. The conservation lens expanded further to consider ecological integrity at regional, national, and even global scales. And today, we recognize that access to nature is a human right.? Our understanding of conservation needs in the Adirondacks has expanded considerably. From land protection to wildlife monitoring to accessible trails and more, the stories in our 2024 Annual Report help illustrate the scope, scale, and trajectory of the Adirondack Land Trust’s work.?? The Annual Report is now available to read on our website: https://lnkd.in/eRc4XUHq Photo by Eric Adsit

Your love for Adirondack forests, waters, farmland, and wild places makes lasting conservation possible. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

The Adirondack Land Trust recently purchased 68 acres on Willsboro Point for ecological conservation and community benefit. The parcel features 950 feet of natural shoreline on Lake Champlain’s Willsboro Bay, open fields, and shrublands. American kestrel, indigo bunting, great crested flycatcher, and long-eared owl are among 136 bird species observed in the immediate area. The land trust acquired the parcel for a fair market price of $840,000 as a first step toward protecting it as municipal parkland. The next step will be for the town to purchase the parcel from the land trust. “We are delighted to be partnering with the town of Willsboro on this exciting opportunity. They have a long-range community vision for this land, and we have land transaction and conservation expertise to help them work toward that vision,” said Adirondack Land Trust Executive Director Mike Carr. “As parkland, this property will be of great value to the quality of life in our town. We will use grant funding to purchase all 68 acres. Opportunities like this — particularly lakefront access — are few and far between,” said Willsboro Town Supervisor Shaun Gillilland. Willsboro Point is the most densely populated area in the town and yet it has the least amount of public access to the lake. And even though Willsboro has more Lake Champlain shoreline than any other town in Essex County, there are few public locations from which to view or access the lake. Photo by Eric Adsit. More info here: https://lnkd.in/eNVJa8ky