Causes: Environment, Forest Conservation, Land Resources Conservation, Natural Resources Conservation & Protection

Programs: Land protection: aslpt has adopted a written conservation plan which includes a prioritized and comprehensive list of properties worthy of protection. Aslpt protects properties through both conservation easements and fee simple acquisition. Land protection includes review, evaluation and detailed research before proceeding with the protection of a property. Aslpt insures that every transaction is legal, proper and appropriate to the goals of the land trust. We compile baseline documentation detailing an accurate representation of the property and its condition at the time of its transfer. During this fiscal year we acquired 4 conservation easements including clark woods, a bradford property which is highly ranked by the state of nh for its wildlife habitat. Pleasant street east in new london was conserved to protect the water quality of pleasant lake. The edwin s brown preserve in new london was conserved to protect the water quality of messer pond. Wendell marsh expansion, sunapee was a high priority for conservation by the town of sunapee due to its pristine wetland habitat for waterfowl, wading birds, and other wildlife, as well as for water quality protection.

community relations and education: aslpt is proactive in building community relations and educating its members, landowners, conservation partners, citizens and government leaders. Our goal is to be recognized as the place to go for land protection expertise. We sponsor and offer conservation events/workshops/conferences aimed toward building close ties around town land protection issues, growth/development challenges, and concerns about land protection priorities. Additionally, our outreach efforts include hosting a conservation commission chairperson's roundtable discussion semi-annually to share information, resources and experiences throughout the region. We utilize a number of communication resources including printed newsletters, mailings, fact sheets, eblasts, a website, events held on conservation properties, speaking engagements to civic groups and neighborhood gatherings.

stewardship and monitoring:stewardship is the overall management and oversight of all ausbon sargent conservation easements and fee-owned properties. Stewardship includes, but is not limited to, monitoring and defending easements, record keeping, building landowner relationships, landowner, staff and volunteer education, rectifying compliance issues, considering reserved rights (approval or disapproval) and providing reference materials to landowners. Monitoring is the annual periodic property inspections by our trained volunteer monitors or staff, as well as the preparation of documents relating to the inspection and any subsequent follow-up. Monitoring serves as a regular reminder that the landowner is legally bound to keep the property in the condition as defined in the conservation easement. All monitoring reports are reviewed by staff and in the event of a compliance issue, aslpt staff carries out an investigation and works to resolve the issue. Monitoring is done by volunteers; however, our goal is to have staff visit 20 or more of these properties with the monitors each year. These visits vary in length depending on the size of the property and the restrictions on the property. We generally have a training session in early june for new volunteers and a refresher session for all easement monitors near the end of september. The training is approximately three hours and includes training indoors as well as a field visit. During these sessions we instruct the volunteers on their responsibilities when they are monitoring the property. We also keep the volunteers updated on any changes in policies we have in regards to monitoring. Drone technology is used to augment on the ground monitoring. This technology is intended for the larger parcels with topography that is difficult to monitor by foot.