Community Connections: Local and Regional Planning Agencies as Partners 2015 RCP Network Gathering November 18, 2015

The Lower River Valley Council of Governments Regional Conservation Partnership Form Follows Function Creating the base and the case for conservation through collaboration and the regional land use planning process. Margot Burns LISRC Regional Planning Organizations of Connecticut

1972 - Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge :

USFWS The region surrounds the Gateway Conservation Zone,

A 30,000 acre area surrounding the lower 20+ miles of the Connecticut River. Since 1974 the Connecticut River Gateway Commission has been charged with protecting the scenic and ecological properties of this unique landscape, the only major river along the east coast of the United States whose mouth is relatively undeveloped

Photo: Robert Perron – Lieutenant River and the Lohmann Buck Twining Preserve - OLLT 1994 - estuary of the lower river was designated as a Ramsar Estuary of Global Importance

1997 the entire watershed of the Connecticut River became the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge (Salmon River Division, Whalebone Cove Division, and the Roger Tory Peterson Division). 1998 the Connecticut was designated as one of the Country’s 14 American Heritage Rivers. proclaimed by The Nature Conservancy to be one of the Last Great Places Tide Water Institute 2005 listed by the EPA Stewardship Initiative as a Long Island Sound Stewardship Site

2009 - Federally designated Wild and Scenic Watershed

2012 – CT River National Blueway Contains Four State designated greenways

Haddam, one of the region’s more northern towns contains a part of the Metacomet, Monadnock, Mattabesett Trail System designated in 2009 as a National Scenic Trail that strives to extend over 200 miles from Massachusetts to Long Island Sound

Ortner Property – Westbrook Land Trust Photo: Long Island Sound Resource Center 2508

Haddam Land Trust