7th Annual ‘Seven Town Mixer’ Focuses on Town Forests and Community Forests
Courtesy photos of presenters Barbara Richter and Charlie Bridges.
MMRG will hold its 7th annual ‘Seven Town Mixer’ on Thursday, November 7 from 5:30 to 8:30 pm at New Durham Elementary School, 7 Old Bay Rd, New Durham, NH. Guest presenters Barbara Richter, Executive Director of NH Association of Conservation Commissions, and Charlie Bridges, Chair of the Birch Ridge Community Forest Citizens Committee, will discuss town forests, community forests and their benefits. The program will also feature networking and information-sharing by municipal officials from MMRG’s seven service towns: Brookfield, Farmington, Middleton, Milton, New Durham, Wakefield, and Wolfeboro. The public is welcome.
At first glance, the terms ‘townforest’ and ‘community forest’ may sound superficially interchangeable, but inNew Hampshire, they are quite distinct. Charlie Bridges summarizes thedifference, “Community forests result from a dedicated federal funding program(the Community Forest Program of the US Forest Service), whereas town forestsare defined in NH state law and designated by a town’s governing body.”
Bridges will speak about theCommunity Forest Program that made possible the recent creation and conservationof the 2,000-acre Birch Ridge Community Forest in New Durham, owned bySoutheast Land Trust of New Hampshire (SELT), with a conservation easement heldby MMRG.
Barbara Richter will discuss thebenefits of setting aside town–owned lands as town forests based on informationfrom the Town Forest Inventory project completed with UNH and the NorthernForest Center. Richter remarks, “I’ll also cover some examples of forestmanagement projects that Conservation Commissions have been involved in.”
Members of town Select Boards, Planning Boards, Conservation Commissions, and other municipal officials are all invited to attend this unique educational event that brings town officials together. The evening will begin with networking and complimentary refreshments. This event is free and open to the public but pre-registration is required. For more information, call MMRG’s Education Coordinator Kari Lygren at (603) 978-7125 or email mmrgnh@gmail.com.