'7 Town Mixer’ Focused on Town Forests & Community Forests
Photos of MMRG's 2019 7 Town Mixer by V. Long.
MMRG's 7th annual ‘Seven Town Mixer’ featured guest speakers Barbara Richter, Executive Director of NH Association of Conservation Commissions, and Charlie Bridges, Chair of the Birch Ridge Community Forest Steering Committee. The focus on town forests and community forests attracted an attentive crowd of a dozen Conservation Commissioners and another dozen interested members of the public and MMRG staff.
Richtereducated the audience about Town Forests, which are authorized by New Hampshirelaw, established by town vote and managed by a Town Forest Committee ofcitizens appointed by the town’s Select Board. Using a quiz to test audienceknowledge, she pointed out that town forests are not the same as conservationproperty, although many NH towns choose to add a conservation easementto ensure the town forest will never get developed.Another important point was that timber harvest income from a town forest mustgo towards management of the forest, unless a different use is approved by townvote.
Richteralso presented results of a recent ‘Town Forest Inventory’ conducted by theNorthern Forest Center and UNH Cooperative Extension. The Inventory found thatNew Hampshire communities generate about $146 million a year in economicbenefits from approximately 180,000 acres of community-owned undevelopedforests, fields and wetlands. Such benefits include forestry products,increasing tourism and recreational opportunities, water quality protection andother so-called ecosystem services where nature does the work to improve thequality of life for people.
CharlieBridges spoke about Community Forests, which are made possible with financialassistance from the Community Forest Program of the US Forest Service. He gaveexamples of several small NH towns that have established their own communityforests through that federal grant program with additional help fromnon-profits such as the Trust for Public Land, the Open Space Institute, andthe Northern Forest Center. One such town, Errol, population three hundred,acquired the 7,000+-acre ‘13 Mile Woods Community Forest’ and used severalyears of timber sale proceeds to pay off the loan it had taken out to purchasethe land.
Bridgesconcluded with a detailed description how the 2,000-acre Birch Ridge CommunityForest was successfully conserved by a partnership of Southeast Land Trust (SELT),Merrymeeting Lake Association (MMLA) and MMRG, thanks to grants from theCommunity Forest Program, NH Land and Community Heritage Program (LCHIP), NHDES Aquatic Resources Mitigation (ARM) Program, the Town of New Durham, and amultitude of generous individual donors. Within the partnership, MMLAinstigated the conservation effort, SELT is the landowner, and MMRG holds theconservation easement on the property. The property is open to the public, withthe best access being along State Snowmobile Corridor 22, thanks to extensive trailmaintenance work by Powder Mill Snowmobile Club.
New Durham residents Bill Malay, whoserves on the town Conservation Commission, and Mike Gelinas, a Trail Managerfor Powder Mill Snowmobile Club, were both glad to have attended the Mixer andlearn something new about the publicly accessible forests of New Durham. Malay, who frequently gets questions aboutthe new Birch Ridge Community Forest, summarized afterwards, “This clarified agood deal!”