Highlights from the Valley JANUARY 2015 – JUNE 2017 conserve the valley you love FY2012 Financial Overview HIGHLIGHTS CONSERVE | CREATE | CARE | CONNECT Combined Financial Overview for January 2015 & 2016 FROM THE VALLEY of Operating Budget Kestrel Land Trust ensures that every dollar you donate leverages public funds to conserve and care for Valley JANUARY 2015 – JUNE 2017 lands. Over the past two and a half years, your financial support has leveraged over $9 million in public funding unrestricted income to protect more than 2,000 acres of forests, farmlands, and riverlands. individual donors IMPACT MAP 4 Our annual budget covers the professional costs associated with saving and stewarding land, as well as creating foundations/community groups CONSERVE FORESTS dgsdf opportunities for more people to explore and feel at home on the land, whether hiking through a forest or fee for service for climate resilience 6 visiting a farm. We rely on more than 1,000 people like you to cover these critical expenses. local businesses CONSERVE FARMS Your generous support enables Kestrel to conserve the Valley we all love. for local food 8 CREATE Thank you for helping to make it all possible! $209,618 83% places for everyone 10 $21,061 8% CARE for the future 12 2015 & 2016 income public funds leveraged CONNECT $17,070 7% Total Gifts, Grants & Other Income: Kestrel Land Trust collaborated with municipal, people to the land 14 state, and federal agencies to leverage $9,189,535 $3,500 1% $2,164,257 in public grants for conservation of 2,042 acres total: Here's what your support accomplished... between January 1, 2015-June 30, 2017. susan c morse susan 2015 & 2016 expenses $251,249A LEGACY FOR THE LAND If you were to hold the 1970 founding document of 613 ACRES OF PRODUCTIVE 954 ACRES CONSERVED FOR 1,439 ACRES OF FOREST AND Conservation, Stewardship & 2015 operatingThe Kestrel expenses Trust, you would see Robert McClung's FARMLAND BECAME HIKING, BIRD WATCHING, WETLANDS PROTECTED FOR Community Programs 2016 signature among those of other founders. Trained in “FOREVER FARMLAND” AND EXPLORING WILDLIFE HABITAT biologyland, and stewardship zoology, Bob's passion& outreach for wildlife mgmt led him Fundraising, Administrative & Jan.-June 2017 administrative Occupancy to a successful career as a writer of children's books aboutdevelopment animals, most of which he illustrated himself. BOARD OF TRUSTEES KESTREL ADVISORS $2,235,150 PO Box 1016 STAFF David Herships Douglas Albertson Adele Franks $1,484,290 Bob and his wife Gale, who was also a writer and Amherst, MA 01004 Kristin DeBoer, Executive Director Scott Jackson, Chair Anthony Hill Harvey Allen Margaret Hepler (413) 549-1097 Kari Blood, Communications & Outreach Manager Marvin Moriarty, Vice-Chair $311,158 edited the Mount Holyoke College Alumnae Judith A. Pierce, Secretary Tom Jenkins Paul Beaulieu Beth Hooker KestrelTrust.org Kat Deely, Community Conservation Manager 17% Magazine for many years, left a bequest to Kestrel Robert A. Jonas Sanford “Sandy” Belden David King $187,185 80% Monica Green, Development Director Ralph S. Tate, Treasurer Land Trust that was received in 2015. Their generous Rosemary Arnold Andrew Morehouse John Body Laurie Sanders total $3,734,129 Mary Lou Splain, Office Manager $3,220,256 $36,765gift will help ensure that lands Bob and Gale16% loved will Jane Bryden Joan Robb Judith Eiseman expenses: Christine Volonte, Stewardship Manager Ann Hallstein Joel Russell 83% $11,483forever shelter wildlife, and that future generations5% of Mark Wamsley, Land Conservation Manager $1,795,4480 children will be able to learn about animals in their design by Kestrel is grateful for the decades of volunteer service provided by three retiring Board members: total:natural environment as well as in books. Seth Gregory Design Paul Beaulieu (1991-2017), Judith Eiseman (1986-2017), Margaret Hepler (2002-2015) $235,433 2 3 The Lands shutesbury That Sustain Us recreation water wildlife farmland SPECIAL deerfield Here is just a sample of the nearly 40 conservation projects completed 16 6 between January 2015 and June 2017 with your support. whately sunderland town conservation areas PLACES leverett 1 Buffam Brook Community Forest .............. Pelham ................... you helped conserve 11 2 Horse Mountain ........................................... Hatfield, W'msburg 3 Holland Glen 2 ............................................... Belchertown ............ 1 4 Bare Mountain (Mt Holyoke Range) ........... South Hadley .......... 5 Cook-County Road ........................................ Southampton, ......... williamsburg 12 pelham Easthampton 2 state lands 6 Brushy Mountain (DFG) .............................. Leverett ................... hatfield amherst 14 9 7 Mount Holyoke Range (DCR) ....................... Granby ................... protected farmlands 13 northampton hadley 8 Barstow's Longview Farm .............................. Hadley .................... 3 9 Foxcroft Farm .................................................. Amherst ................. westhampton 8 15 10 Clapp Farm ..................................................... Westhampton ........ Learn more about these 11 Mitchell Farm ................................................ Amherst .................. 17 10 and other lands at our new 11 4 website: kestreltrust.org kestrel-owned lands 12 Michael J. Elkins Memorial Woodland ....... Amherst.................... belchertown easthampton 7 13 Greenberg Family Conservation Area ........ Westhampton ....... granby 14 Pemberton Memorial Forest ....................... Pelham ................... south hadley conservation restrictions on private land 15 Hampshire College (Mt. Holyoke Range)... Hadley ..................... 5 16 Smith College (MacLeish Field Station) ..... Whately .................. southampton 17 Martin-Held Conservation Restriction .......Westhampton....... 4 holyoke CONSERVE Our Forests “With landscapes everywhere endangered these days, we can be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the work to be done. The challenges facing the earth are huge, but here in the Valley Kestrel is saving land and showing us why land conservation is FOREST AS LIVING LABORATORY important to us all. Given the stakes, Early in 2017, the town of Pelham became why wouldn’t I support Kestrel?” home to a new kind of forest—a unique Susan Haff “living laboratory” that will demonstrate the volunteer, south deerfield John body benefits of sustainable forestry on climate change resilience. Four private landowners worked with Kestrel to sell their land below WILDLIFE NEEDS RESILIENT FORESTS IN A CHANGING CLIMATE market value to the Town of Pelham to create Saving the Black Bear's Home in the Forest 3,486 acres of woodlands owned by W.D. Cowls on Brushy Mountain were conserved as the Paul C. Jones Buffam Brook Community Forest: 161 acres It’s a brisk fall day, and the female black bear has a belly full of acorns and the last of the fruits from the Working Forest in 2011. In 2015, Kestrel and its partners at the Massachusetts Department of Fish & Game that will provide educational, recreational, LEARN MORE forest. It’s a good thing, because she has a challenging winter ahead as her first litter of cubs is soon to worked with two willing landowners to conserve another148 acres on Brushy Mountain. In Pelham, we and economic benefits for the community. Find out how forests are impacted by be born in the darkness of her den. She needs at least 10 square miles to ensure she has enough food worked with the town and the Pemberton family to acquire 30 acres adjacent to another 500 acres of With scientific input from foresters at the climate change and what can be done. sources throughout the year for herself and her cubs. forest that Kestrel conserved decades ago. Conserving smaller areas next to large blocks of forest provides University of Massachusetts, the forest will "Increasing Forest Resiliency for critical habitat connections for black bears and other wildlife species. be carefully managed to increase its resilience As she moves from hardwood groves to forest openings thick with wild raspberry brambles, it doesn’t an Uncertain Future," UMass Amherst to the impacts of climate change, making it matter to her that she has crossed a property line drawn on a map. What matters is that the habitat Protecting large blocks of forests is more important than ever as New England faces the effects of climate better able to recover from disturbances like >> masswoods.net/caring-your-land/ she roams is large and the places she visits are connected. Though the lines we impose on the land are change. In the spring of 2017, Kestrel helped the towns of Hatfield and Williamsburg permanently hurricanes or drought. And, landowners, forest-resiliency meaningless to the bear, those lines are critically important to her when they represent land that is conserve 128 acres on Horse Mountain, providing wildlife connections to hundreds of acres of other students, and researchers will be able to permanently conserved. That's why Kestrel aims to conserve contiguous forest from Leverett to Pelham, conserved lands. The terrain on Horse Mountain varies from low wetlands to steep rocky outcrops. These observe and learn about forestry approaches west of the Quabbin Reservoir. characteristics, among others, add up to a "resilient landscape" where plants and animals can find new for a more sustainable future. places to live if their habitats change or disappear due to new climate conditions. 6 7 CONSERVE Our Farmlands “We could not