Monadnock Conservancy receives funding from Quabbin to Cardigan Partnership;
Grants total more than $40,000 for projects in Alstead and Peterborough
The Monadnock Conservancy announced today that it has been awarded four grants totaling $40,150 from the Quabbin to Cardigan Partnership (Q2C), a public/private effort to protect the Monadnock Highlands of western New Hampshire and north central Massachusetts. The grants will help cover transaction expenses on Conservancy projects that protect priority areas identified by the Q2C Partnership in the local region.
The largest award, $18,650, is for expenses incurred on the Otter Brook Farm easement project in Peterborough. The Otter Brook Farm easement covers more than 1,000 acres and protects diverse wetlands and groundwater aquifers, upland forests and a large, unfragmented area of remote wildlife habitat. Part of the property has been designated “forever wild” and will remain off-limits to timber harvesting in order to let natural processes prevail.
Another project, the Chase easement in Alstead, received a grant of $6,500. The 131-acre Chase easement protects Prentice Hill and a forested parcel with frontage on Warren Brook.
The Otter Brook Farm and Chase easements were completed in December 2009.
Two additional Q2C grant awards in the amount of $12,000 and $3,000 will cover the transaction costs of upcoming projects in Alstead and Peterborough, respectively.
The Monadnock Conservancy will also be participating in conservation efforts to protect Tippin’ Rock Farm in Swanzey and a property in Marlborough. Both of these projects were awarded Q2C grants through their town conservation commissions, totaling $4,400 and $20,800 respectively.
Funding for the Q2C grants was provided by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS). The grants program is administered by the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests on behalf of the Quabbin to Cardigan Partnership through a cooperative agreement with NRCS.
“The Quabbin to Cardigan Partnership is pleased to have been able to support these projects,” said Chris Wells, who coordinates the Q2C effort. “Taken together they will protect more than 2,300 acres of the most ecologically important land in the Monadnock region, which itself is part of a larger highlands region that stretches over one hundred miles from the Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts to the White Mountains.”
To learn more about the Quabbin to Cardigan Partnership, visit www.q2cpartnership.org.
To learn more about the Monadnock Conservancy, visit www.monadnockconservancy.org or call 603-357-0600.
The Monadnock Conservancy, founded in 1989, is the only land trust dedicated exclusively to the 35 towns of the Monadnock Region in southwestern New Hampshire. Its mission is to identify, promote and actively seek protection of significant natural, aesthetic and historic resources in the area; and to monitor and enforce the protection of lands in the trust. Based in Keene, N.H., the Conservancy has protected more than 14,000 acres of forest, farmland, shoreline, wetlands, wildlife habitat and miles of public recreation trails in the region.