As the spring songbird migration winds down and the butterfly migration picks up, there are some prime viewing sports right in Hanover! The Trust for Public Lands has put together a list of butterfly hotspots across the country including the Mink Brook Community Forest and Hudson Farm! Both spots contain open wildflower-filled meadows that are prime habitats for these pollinators.
Read the full article here
We are thrilled to announce that the 250-acre Mink Brook Community Forest (formerly owned by the Leavitt family) off Greensboro Road is now permanently protected and open to the public! An entire generation of conservationists worked to make this project happen: read the full press release here.
This couldn’t have happened without The Town of Hanover and the Trust for Public Lands working in tandem with generous local donors- thank you all! The Mink Brook Community Forest belongs to the Town of Hanover and will be managed for sustainable forestry, low-impact recreation and biodiversity.
The land is now open to the public. Keep an eye out for guided hikes to the property, to be announced soon!
This conservation project is a real winner, landing Hanover’s first LCHIP grant – $200,000 from the NH Land & Community Heritage Investment Program! This means fund-raising is now complete, thanks to generous support from the Hanover community, which attracted the support of LCHIP, the US Forest Service, and more. Any extra funds raised will go to help the Town care for the property – build trails and trailheads, deal with invasives, mowing, and more.
What do YOU think the future of this place should be? Share your ideas in this survey. Zoom in to the final community meeting on Dec. 2, when Julie Evans of the Northern Forest Center will lead a discussion on conservation, forest management, and recreation priorities. Recordings of past meetings and more info HERE.
Help the Town of Hanover plan for recreation and management at the future Mink Brook Community Forest (off Greensboro Road) by participating in this 5 minute survey. The survey is open through November 29th, 2020.
At last night’s Hanover Town Meeting, residents voted to approve a $500,000 contribution towards the purchase of the Mink Brook Community Forest from reserve and conservation funds held by the Town. From the Valley News, “Plans to turn 260 acres of woods and old farmland along both sides of Greensboro Road into a town forest also were OK’d on Tuesday. Residents voted by a show of hands to spend $500,000 to help purchase land which crosses Mink Brook and includes a brick farmhouse from 1850. The Trust for Public Land, assisted by the Hanover Conservancy, hopes to spend $2.5 million acquiring the property from the Leavitt family. So far, an anonymous donor has footed $500,000 to help the project, which also received a $600,000 community forest program grant from the U.S. Forest Service. None of the town’s share will come from new taxes, and will instead be taken from existing reserve and conservation funds. Officials also hope to sell the property’s farmhouse to help finance the overall project, and a separate four acres could be used by Twin Pines Housing Trust to build “a small cluster of affordable cottage-style homes targeted to new homeowners,” according to an April news release.”
NEW! Watch the May 27th, 2020 recording of a Zoom informational meeting on the Mink Brook Community Forest project. The call was led by JT Horn, Senior Project Manager for the Trust for Public Land and Rob Houseman, Planning Director for the Town of Hanover.
