Quabbin-to-Cardigan

Conserved in 2010 with the help of Q2C funding, Otter Brook Farm in Peterborough features pristine wetlands forests, and wildlife habitat. Photo courtesy of Monadnock Conservancy.

Launched in 2003, the Quabbin-to-Cardigan (Q2C) Partnership is a collaborative landscape-scale effort of 27 private organizations and public agencies to conserve the Monadnock Highlands of north-central Massachusetts and western New Hampshire. The Q2C partners meet quarterly to coordinate public and private finance efforts, communications, conservation planning, and real estate transaction work--including reviewing projects seeking partnership endorsement.

The Q2C Initiative does not protect land directly; its member organizations do. Land is conserved strictly on a willing-seller basis through a combination of conservation easements and land acquisitions, managed by private owners, conservation organizations and public agencies. The Q2C partners share a vision of consolidating the permanent protection of the region’s most ecologically significant forest blocks, and key connections between them for wildlife passage and human recreation.

Q2C partners worked for more than three years to develop the Quabbin-to-Cardigan conservation plan, which combines state-of-the-art natural resource science and the consensus vision of the Q2C partner organizations. Completed in 2007, the Q2C plan has identified approximately 600,000 acres of core conservation focus areas that represent the region’s most ecologically significant forests. These conservation focus areas represent about 30 percent of the two-million-acre region, and are currently 39 percent protected. An additional 400,000 acres, or another 21 percent of the region, have been identified as “supporting landscapes” that buffer and link the core areas, and are currently 26 percent protected.