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Conservation Commission

Conservation and More

              by Bruce B. Beckley


Issue #70, September, 1999
Conservation 101

Rain Before Seven, Clear By Eleven

The old adage, at least as old as my grandmother, came true this morning. Today it rained at 6 AM and now at 7:30 the red maples stand as brilliant torches against a cloudless sky. Soon that leafy color will become a speckled braided rug on the woodland floor, intermingling with and camouflaging this year’s outstanding assortment of fungi. And then, as Hal Borland writes, walking in the woods will be like walking across a plate of corn flakes.

As I write, a dozen robins pick the remaining white berries from the gray-stemmed dogwood and the last yellow delicious awaits my attention. Around the yard, the rich maroon blueberry bushes, orange service-berry and cadmium yellow canoe birch complement the red and gold fruit on the crab apples and highbush cranberry. In a routine she has practiced since the ice age, Nature has thrown her palette against the landscape out doing the canvass of any modern artist.

While Nature is turning drought into a harvest of color and substance, what has the your ACC been doing? This has been a summer of volunteerism and activity. A dozen volunteers worked into the Fall evaluating dozens and dozens of wetlands. Their data will provide bases for many future planning and protection actions. Over 300 young people participated in the Hartshorn program at Peabody Mill Environmental Center. Thirty teachers and aids gave 150 visitors a fun-filled afternoon of colonial crafts – even if the apple grinder failed and apples couldn’t be pressed into cider. Get ‘em next year. More volunteer hours have gone into renovation of PMEC and presentation of programs there on the Colorado and Galapagos Islands. (See related articles for future events.)

Underlying all the other activity, we continue to listen to townsfolk asking that acquifer recharge areas be protected, that open space be preserved, that viewsheds be unadulterated. On our plate at this moment are overtures and discussions that could provide all of the above plus a scout outdoor training center site, In the next 14 months we would like to see protective covenants placed on 400 acres of currently open space – space that is pregnant for new homes. Obviously, this can not be done without your support!

Protection 101

There are many ways to ensure that today’s open spaces can be perpetuated to provide diversified habitat, passive recreation and visual relief from sprawling development:

  1. Gift of land or capital to be used for land purchase. May create tax and estate benefits.
  2. Bargain Sale. A sale at below appraised value to create tax benefits for the seller.
  3. Conservation Easement. May be donated or sold. Protects land from subdivision while reserving specific rights to the donor. May create tax and estate benefits. May be followed later by a gift of the remaining value.
  4. Purchase. Places ACC on a playing field with developers.

Any of these may be phased or timed to benefit the donor’s financial situation. Interested? Please contact an ACC member or the equally concerned independent Amherst Land Trust.

Ten gifts of $100 can protect an acre of back land.

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