News – Page 2

Another Trails Challenge season comes to a close

October 10, 2025

Thank you for participating in the 12th annual Hanover Trails Challenge. More than 120 people registered for this year’s Challenge, including individuals, families, and groups of friends . We hope everyone enjoyed getting outdoors and exploring some or all of our featured trails this summer. New for this year, we have special finisher bandanas for everyone who submitted a completed checklist by the deadline. These are available for pick-up at the Hanover Conservancy office at 71 Lyme Road, or out at our events this fall. Limited in-town delivery may be possible, let us know if you are having trouble connecting with us in-person!

From our stack of completed checklists, we drew names for our raffle on September 26. All winners have been notified and prizes mailed. Congratulations to our lucky winners: Diane and Eric, Kathleen, Debra, Catherine and Joseph, Ken and family, Martha and Lindsey, Daniel and Ellie, Penni, Deborah, Laura, Mert, Gary, Heather, and Peter and Silvia! Please join us in thanking these local businesses for donating raffle prizes: King Arthur Baking Co., Blue Sky Restaurant Group, Ramuntos Brick and Brew, Stateline Sports, Base Camp Café, Umpleby’s Bakery and Café, Hubert’s Family Outfitters, Main Street Kitchens, Molly’s Restaurant, and the Nugget Theater.

Did you find a new favorite trail this summer? Would you like to help us keep it cared for and protected for future generations? Become one of our adopt-a-trail volunteer stewards! Volunteers help us by providing an extra set of eyes, ears, and hands on the trail. If you would like to learn more about this program and how you can get started, please email program manager Barry Matthews at bmatthews@hanoverconservancy.org.

Thank you again for spending some of your time this summer hiking with the Hanover Conservancy! We hope to see you out on the trails or at an event soon!

2025 Nominations to the Board of Directors

October 2, 2025

Sarah Kitz

Sarah Kitz has a background in sustainable forest management and conservation. She is currently a Managing Director at The Lyme Timber Company, a forestland investment group in Hanover, NH, where she works on existing and prospective investments. Immediately prior, Sarah served as Manager of Business Development for Green Diamond Resource Company, a fifth-generation forestry company, where she evaluated and managed investment activities, new partnership opportunities, and conservation sales. She has also previously served on the Board of Directors for the Washington Farmland Trust. Sarah earned her M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business and a B.A. in Environmental Analysis from Pomona College. She currently lives in Norwich, VT with her husband Willy and two kids, Sophie and Caleb.

Members are invited to vote on our nominated slate of directors at our Annual Meeting on October 15. More information can be found here.

New trips for Fall 2025!

September 2, 2025

We hope you’ll join us for another exciting season of events out on the land and around town. Our 2025 fall trips card will be making its way to member households shortly (join or renew today!), and you can find the full listing of events on our online calendar. You won’t want to miss fun outings to Balch Hill, Mink Brook, Moose Mountain, and more.

And as always, all our events are free and open to the public—all are welcome!

Stay tuned throughout the fall months for pop-up volunteer events and other opportunities to come together and celebrate Hanover’s special places.

Thank you, Adair

September 2, 2025

The Hanover Conservancy would like to inform our members, partners, and neighbors that Adair Mulligan, the Conservancy’s Executive Director, has decided to step aside. Her career has been marked by a deep love of our land and dedicated service to expanding and strengthening conservation initiatives in the Upper Valley of New Hampshire and Vermont.

To know Adair is to know her fervent love of nature. Adair’s accomplishments over the past fifteen years cannot be understated. She became the Conservancy’s first full-time Executive Director in 2010, where her deep knowledge and talents in land conservation, stewardship, and coalition building became readily apparent. Adair helped expand Hanover’s network of protected areas and dramatically increased our community’s capacity to responsibly manage key resources. Under Adair’s leadership, the Hanover Conservancy’s number of protected properties and acreage tripled over those protected across the previous half century of the organization’s history. In addition, she supported efforts by the Town of Hanover and others to protect another 450 acres. The financial assets of the Conservancy expanded more than eight-fold.

Perhaps most importantly, Adair’s commitment to connecting people to the environment led to hundreds of community field trips and educational events, scholarship awards, and conservation trainings. An environmental biologist with a deep interest in cultural history, Adair brought a new focus on how natural resources shape the human experience on the landscape.

We are grateful to have Adair’s leadership, expertise, and energy until December. Indeed, Adair is working in overdrive to finalize several exciting conservation projects before she steps down. Later this year we’re planning a formal event to properly thank Adair for her service to our community. In the meantime, please join us at a Hanover Conservancy event to get outdoors and say thank you.

The Hanover Conservancy will soon begin the difficult task of finding Adair’s successor. Please reach out if you know of good candidates.

Adair – The Hanover Conservancy Board, on behalf of our members, volunteers, and partners thanks you for your devotion, your passion, your intelligence, and most of all, your service to the land. What you have accomplished will live on forever.

Photo courtesy of Jim Block.

Spring trips announced!

March 31, 2025

We hope you’ll join us for another exciting season of events out on the land and around town. Our 2025 spring trips card will be making its way to member households shortly (join or renew today!), and you can find the full listing of events on our online calendar. You won’t want to miss fun outings to Balch Hill, Mayor-Niles Forest, the Dartmouth Organic Farm, and more.

And as always, all our events are free and open to the public—all are welcome!

Stay tuned throughout the spring months for pop-up volunteer events and other opportunities to come together and celebrate Hanover’s special places.

Hanover Garden Club presents Doug Tallamy films at the Nugget

March 28, 2025

The Hanover Garden Club will host a special video presentation of two films from Doug Tallamy of Homegrown National Park on Tuesday, April 22, at the Nugget Theater. The films will address issues like how biodiversity is declining, and what you can do to help; simple, effective ways to create habitat and support wildlife; and the personal rewards of bringing nature back home and into our public spaces (like at the Hanover Garden Club beds in front of the Nugget!).

After the videos, ‘What’s the Rush’ and ‘Restoring Insects’, stick around for a live 30 minute Q&A to get your native planting questions answered. VT Center for Ecostudies’ Conservation Scientist Dr. Desirée Narango and Director of Conservation Science Dr. Ryan Rebozo will join Alicia Houk, author and local ecological gardening expert, as the panelists. They will discuss native plants, creating insect and bird habitats at home, and strategies for yard rewilding. Plus, we’ll have free resources to help you take action right away.

Come with your questions and enthusiasm to make a difference in biodiversity, one yard at a time.

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO REGISTER: Visit the Hanover Garden Club’s website.