Cold Hollow to Canada Hosts Woodlots Program Tour
Guest post by Meg Schader, Land Trust Bird Conservation Initiative, Cornell Lab of Ornithology
What do canopy gaps and potlucks have in common? They’re both key components of the Woodlots Program developed by Cold Hollow to Canada (CHC), a Regional Conservation Partnership (RCP) that works across seven towns in the Cold Hollow Mountains of northern Vermont with nonprofits, government agencies, and landowners to protect natural resources and wildlife
The CHC Woodlots Program facilitates neighbor-to-neighbor collaboration around ecological forestry and bird-friendly practices in the region, helping forest landowners connect and learn about wildlife habitat creation, climate change resiliency, and best management practices for working lands. For Nancy Patch, the co-founder of CHC, that work begins with helping people build a relationship with the forests around them. As Patch says, “You only see what you know, love what you see, and protect what you love.”
Along with Steve Hagenbuch, senior forest program manager at Audubon Vermont, Patch planned and led a two-day woodlots tour at the end of June to share knowledge with partners working to establish woodlots groups in Connecticut and Rhode Island. Funding for the tour was provided by the Northeast Bird Habitat Conservation Initiative, which is supporting these efforts to expand the woodlots model beyond Vermont.
Tour attendees included staff from Kent Land Trust, the Audubon Society of Rhode Island, and the Cornell Lab’s Land Trust Bird Conservation Initiative. Dave Erickson, executive director of CHC, accompanied the group, which traveled together around the Cold Hollow region. Over two days, the group of eight visited four forest properties to learn about various ecological forest management techniques—including crop tree release and canopy gap creation, which promote forest health and diversity by allowing light to reach the understory—and hear from landowners participating in CHC’s peer-to-peer network.
The tour concluded in Montgomery, Vermont, with a potluck at a property that is enrolled in the forest reserve category of the state’s current use program, which helps protect working lands from development by lowering property taxes. About 20 members of the CHC Montgomery Woodlots Group attended the gathering, sharing their insights and perspectives with the out-of-state visitors.
Beyond seeing forest management practices on the ground, the tour participants experienced lessons from CHC’s Woodlots Toolkit firsthand. They witnessed the social connections sparked by a shared love of forests among members of the Montgomery Woodlots Group as they explored forests and broke bread together. Participants shared family updates as they helped each other across fallen logs, swapped recent wildlife sightings after seeing a black bear amble across a meadow, and talked about tools for bird identification as they listened to a White-throated Sparrow sing from the edge of a woodland.
For Connie Manes, executive director of Kent Land Trust, the knowledge-sharing tour helped strengthen her commitment to establishing a Woodlots Group in the 22,580-acre Macedonia Forest Block Important Bird Area within the Litchfield Hills Greenprint RCP in Connecticut. By facilitating a network of forest landowners and connecting them with foresters and technical service providers, Manes is seeking to apply the CHC Woodlots model to her region. “CHC’s Woodlots Program is a replicable model for engaging landowners in bird-friendly forest practices, and now I have a much clearer picture of what it will take to build that same kind of trust and collaboration here,” says Manes.
Scott Ruhren, senior director of conservation at the Audubon Society of Rhode Island, is working on a similar effort with the Rhode Island Woodland Partnership, an RCP in his state. Attending the CHC Woodlots tour in June motivated Ruhren, who will be conducting forest visits with interested landowners and hosting workshops with land trusts this summer to share what he learned. Ruhren will also be identifying a demonstration site for bird-friendly forestry in Rhode Island this fall.
As the Woodlots model grows beyond Vermont, the connection between canopy gaps and potlucks becomes clear: both create openings—one in the forest canopy, allowing light to reach the understory and new growth to flourish; the other in the community, allowing relationships to grow alongside ecological knowledge. Patch’s guiding philosophy—that people protect what they love, and love what they know—depends on these openings to take root, whether they let sunlight reach the forest floor or let neighbors connect over a shared meal long enough to trade stories about bird and bear sightings. As Manes, Ruhren, and other conservation leaders carry the CHC model back to the places they love, they're fostering more than healthy woodlots; they're cultivating the kind of place-based stewardship that transforms forest management into a shared way of life.