The Forest Society at Work

Annual Meeting Remarks by President/Forester Jane A. Difley

Gunstock Mountain Resort, Sept. 28, 2019

As you know, this is our 118th Annual Meeting, the first being in 1902 after our founding on Feb. 6, 1901. This is my 24th—and last--as your President/Forester.

When I was named the fourth President/Forester in 1996, I played along with the jokes about how I would need to stay in office for 35 years to prove that I could hang with the boys, my predecessors Philip Ayres, Larry Rathbun, and Paul Bofinger, all of whom enjoyed long tenures.

But here I am giving my final Report to Members only 23 years in. One might say that it only goes to prove that what takes a man over three decades to achieve, a woman can get done in considerably less time.

Friendly competition aside, I am proud of the accomplishments of the Forest Society, not just this past year but over the last two decades. More importantly, you and all our members should be proud, and should rightly take full credit, for protecting 300,000 acres and more than doubling the size of our fee Reservations to more than 56,000 acres, and, for nine years, advocating the protection of our broader scenic landscape by battling Northern Pass.

Lest you haven’t heard the news, I would like to report---and it gives me great joy to say this—Hot dang, we won.

That we won is rewarding and remarkable—I can tell you that we didn’t win every battle we took on over the last 20 years. Many people told us—even up to the end—that a 192-mile string of towers was inevitable and we shouldn’t waste our time and energy fighting it.

But we are a Society of principles and mission. We set out to accomplish our work because it is the right thing to do. To us, Northern Pass threatened existing conserved forestlands—ours and those of others--and thus it was our duty to defend them against callous and needless destruction.

When I say that we won the Northern Pass fight, I mean that we, all of us who care deeply about New Hampshire, won. The greatest lesson of Northern Pass is the extent we achieve great things by banding together—the Forest Society with conservation partners like the Appalachian Mountain Club, the Conservation Law Foundation, the Nature Conservancy and NH Audubon—and all of those with dozens of communities and businesses, and thousands of landowners. A team of teams.

Another lesson from Northern Pass is that sometimes our greatest achievements come unpredictably and untidily. No strategic plan would have let us know that we would raise and spend millions of dollars—protecting 8,000 acres in the North Country along the way—over nearly a decade. We recognized an emerging and urgent need and chose to act on principle, and only then figured out how to do it. We were faithful to our mission.

The annual reports in your packets tell the story of this past year—though I confess I’m a little embarrassed by all the pictures of me. It’s not about me, it’s never been about me.

It’s about the work—protecting drinking water lands in Manchester, working with a private landowner like Nancy Spencer Smith to put an easement on lands long in her family, adding a new Reservation, Stillhouse Forest, that includes a long stretch of frontage on the Merrimack River. It’s about ongoing stewardship—our foresters compiling forest management plans and conducting sustainable harvests, volunteers improving trails at Mount Monadnock or Powder Major’s Forest in Lee, and our growing Outdoor Classroom educational outreach at Mount Major and Mount Kearsarge.

And its about people. Our extraordinary staff who do the work, the incredibly dedicated volunteers who work side by side with staff, and the generous donors—including all of you—who facilitate everything we do.

And so I’d like to take a moment to tell you three stories. These are stories about three people who helped the Forest Society achieve our mission in the last 23 years. More than that, they each influenced how we went about our work and helped with resources to accomplish that work. Each of the three had vision in a different way.

First, I want to remember Charlie Watts. How many of you remember Charlie? Charlie was larger than life, a force of nature. He was a trustee, and was taken from us much too soon shortly after our 100th anniversary in 2001.

Charlie retired from a career in academia—he was President of Bucknell and on the Board of Brown--and as such was an incredible mentor to me personally and also to the organization. He inspired others.

As a young man, Charlie loved Green Mountain in Effingham and Freedom. When he was able, he acquired 1000 acres on Green Mountain that he eventually gave to the Forest Society and it was our 100th Forest Reservation.

But he didn’t stop there. He wanted to protect the Mountain from the top down to the Ossipee River. He introduced us to others and helped us with a broader campaign. In those days we were experimenting with raising money to protect land, which believe it or not was a new concept. After the successful completion of the Riverlands Campaign, in which we conserved what we know now as the Harman Preserve, Charlie wanted to have a party. He insisted that we invite every donor—some 250 people—and most all of them came. They included everybody from leatherclad motorcyclists to the upper crust. And what happened was that people started pointing at each other and saying “Hey, I didn’t know you were interested in conservation too!” That happened over and over again.

Charlie Watts showed us how one person’s vision could be the vision of many, and that the love of land is indiscriminate.

Charlie also left us with a wonderful quote, which comes from when he spoke at our 100th Anniversary celebration. Charlie said, of his gift, and I quote:

“…I looked into my closet to see what I had to give and realized that one of my greatest assets is New Hampshire.  In making this gift, I am not giving anything away, I am simply caring for what I hold dear, making sure it will be there forever.”

Next, I want to tell you about Eleanor Briggs. Some of you may know Eleanor from her leadership at the Harris Center—which, I understand, was named for Eleanor’s cat.

Eleanor is an accomplished photographer and she has an artist’s eye for the natural world. She has taken photographs all over the world. She loves New Hampshire and that admiration for New Hampshire is clear in her photographs of the state. I think as a result of her travels and her photographs of other parts of the world, she sees New Hampshire more clearly. Whenever we visited her, we always visited her studio so we could look at her photographs.

In the early 2000s, forest loss to development was at a peak—it seemed like there were bulldozers on crest of every hill and our freshly minted New Hampshire Everlasting vision called for the protection of another one million acres in response. Eleanor wanted to help us do something that really moved the needle on land protection. She kept telling us to think bigger and to be more strategic with our resources.

We listened, and we formed the Quabbin-to-Cardigan Partnership, focusing on connectivity of conserved forestlands along the western spine of Mass and NH from Quabbin Reservoir to Cardigan Mountain. Eleanor helped make it possible to bring together the Q2C collaborative with dozens of partners, who collectively have protected thousands of acres.

The Q2C Partnership and regional plan led to similar initiatives—today we have a similar partnership and plan for the Merrimack River Valley in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. We are partners in a Lakes Region Conservation Plan and a Coastal Conservation Plan.

Eleanor also understood the importance of funding for transaction costs. That’s the hardest money to get in conservation—the money to cover surveyors and attorneys and professional staff.  She made it possible by taking a leap of faith, not knowing what particular piece of ground might end up conserved as a result, but trusting in the overall goals of the collaborative vision that was Q2C. She underscored for us the truth that all of us working together on a greater vision would have a greater impact than any one of us working singularly.

Lastly, I want to tell you about Dave Roberts. I know quite a few of you here knew Dave—Nancy and Charlie Mitchell, Russ Wilder, you knew Dave well. Dave was a trail guy, and he loved the Belknaps where we are this afternoon. He mapped the trails, he helped maintain them.

Dave was modest, a school teacher by profession who quietly went about what he did. He was an unassuming and gentle soul who inspired other volunteers. He was focused, determined, persistent, and ultimately very generous. For me, the work that Dave did, bringing us together with Belknap Range Conservation Coalition, revealed me what an extraordinary opportunity for recreation and public engagement exists here in the Belknaps on southern rim of Lake Winnipesaukee. He inspired the Forest Society and the Lakes Region Conservation Trust to invest in Mount Major, where 80,000 people a year go for a walk in the woods.

I tell you the stories about these three because it is people like them who made our work possible over the last 23 years. Their impact has been lasting—we are still advancing their vision as part of our mission.

And when I think about the land we protected, I can’t help but think all the people who inspired us, who supported us, who were engaged in our work, and who became our friends. I can’t help but think about all of you who are here today.

When I look into my closet to see what I have to give, I realize that my greatest assets are my friends. And I need not give them away, but I hold you all dear, and together we will make sure New Hampshire is here forever.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, and I hope to see you soon on a trail in the woods. I’ll be retired woman with her dog.