SUE AND PETER DOYLE HONORED BY FOREST SOCIETY AS CONSERVATIONISTS OF THE YEAR
New Hampshire Fish and Game Department Recognized with Conservation Partners Award
The Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests recognized Sue and Peter Doyle as the organization’s Conservationists of the Year.
Among the most prestigious recognitions of the Forest Society, this annual award honors those exemplary people whose have worked to promote land conservation through many different avenues, often with significant sacrifice.
Sue Doyle and her late husband Peter shared a vision of permanently protected land. They have generously donated both their time and resources to the achievement of this vision. Before his death last year, Peter served on the Keene Conservation Commission as well as on the board of the Harris Center. He also completed the Forest Society’s Land Steward training program and stewarded the organization’s Taves Forest Reservation in Keene.
In 1997 a 106-acre parcel adjacent the conserved Taves Reservation came on the market. Featuring more than 1,200 feet brook frontage, the parcel also abuts Keene watershed lands. In an act of tremendous generosity, the Doyle’s made a great leap: they bought the land, then turned around and gave it to the Forest Society to be added to the Taves Forest Reservation.
Later, when a large 600-acre-plus property near their home west of Keene became available, they acquired it as well—then donated a conservation easement on the land to the Forest Society. The Doyles went on to donate another conservation easement on additional property surrounding their home.
Determined to further the conservation legacy that she and her late husband began, Sue Doyle continues today to assist the Forest Society in its efforts to conserve the Ashuelot River Headwaters north of Keene.
The Forest Society also presented the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department with a Conservation Partner Award in recognition of the Department’s outstanding work over many years, particularly its recent successes with the Forest Society, including:
- The 2,128-acre Washburn Forest in Clarksville.
- The 2,000-acre Mulligan Forest in Nottingham.
- The 284-acre Salmon Falls Reservation in Milton
- And the 2,300-acre Moose Mountains Reservation in Middleton and Brookfield.
Commissioner Glen Normandeau and Charlie Bridges accepted the award on behalf of the Department.
The Doyles and the Fish and Game Department were honored at the Forest Society’s 108th Annual Meeting, held earlier this month at the Waukewan Golf Club in Meredith, NH. The Annual Meeting was sponsored by Benthien Associates, Cambridge Trust Company, the Common Man restaurant, Eventbuilders, The Inn on Golden Pond, Shep Brown’s Boat Basin out on Meredith Neck, and Winnipesaukee Chocolates.
Founded in 1901, the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests is the state’s oldest and largest non-profit land conservation organization. Supported by 10,000 families and businesses, the Forest Society’s mission is to perpetuate the state’s forests by promoting land conservation and sustainable forestry. For more information, visit www.forestsociety.org.