The bears are back! Bring in your birdfeeders, secure garbage and compost, and keep your grills clean to prevent negative bear-human interactions.
Watch Ben Kilham’s full presentation on living with bears, thanks to our local Community Access TV crew. Find out more about Ben’s work at kilhambearcenter.org.
Regular visitors to the preserve have watched the brook working to shift its course just below the log crossing, ever since Tropical Storm Irene rearranged things upstream back in 2011. What the brook doesn’t know is that the sewer line is buried here, right under the Quinn Trail, and needs to stay that way! Felling and cabling a large nearby pine in hopes of capturing sediment and diverting the flow were a great idea but apparently not up to the task. Therefore, the town DPW will perform temporary, emergency repairs next week that will involve stone at the base of the eroded bank. Next year, a fuller treatment will take place, hopefully restoring the vegetative buffer in the process to improve habitat. We’ll keep you posted.
Please give the Quinn Trail a break May 18-21, but feel free to observe the work from the safety of the Wheelock Trail on the opposite bank. You can reach this spot from Route 10 just south of the bridge, or from Buck Road. We know the town will take all precautions to be sure the project affects water quality as little as possible.
We all know that broad and beautiful meadow on Greensboro Road – a generous open space that is such a welcome sight in days like these. The Hanover Conservancy is proud to partner with the Town of Hanover and the Trust for Public Land in a major project to protect these 250 acres of floodplain meadow, upland forest, and the corridor of Mink Brook, to be called the Mink Brook Community Forest. MORE
Earth Day reminds us to be grateful for Susan Harper, a dedicated volunteer and Secretary of our Board of Directors from 2003-2008, who recently passed away. She really made things happen in Hanover, especially at the Balch Hill Natural Area, where she started the wonderful tradition of Kite Day, when families enjoy the views and spring breezes on the open summit. Susan’s family has asked that gifts in her memory be made to the Conservancy; we are dedicating them to the Balch Hill Stewardship Fund in her name.
We at the Hanover Conservancy are proud of the progress we’ve helped our community make in protecting natural lands and clean waters. By the time of the first Earth Day in 1970, we had protected the summit of Balch Hill and conveyed the Tanzi Tract to the Town of Hanover with conservation restrictions. Beyond Hanover, we’d also assisted NH Fish and Game in acquiring Lyme’s 43-acre Wilder Wildlife Management Area and the New England Wildflower Society in protecting a 35-acre riverfront preserve in Plainfield.
These maps tell the story of then and now.
Today, we own and protect 450+ acres of natural areas and hold permanent conservation easements on another 550+ acres. The Hanover Conservancy has also assisted other partners with saving nearly 1700 more acres in Hanover and elsewhere in the Upper Valley.
2020 marks the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970 – and the beginning of the environmental movement that has inspired so much healthy, positive change in how we treat our home planet. Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, US Senator from Wisconsin, came up with the idea after witnessing a massive oil spill in California. It was the Vietnam Era; Sen. Nelson hoped to infuse the energy of anti-war protests with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution to force environmental protection onto the national political agenda.
Organizers chose April 22 (between Spring Break and final exams), for an event that drew 20 million Americans — 10% of the total US population — to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast protests, uniting groups fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife. Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, gaining support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, urban dwellers and farmers, business and labor leaders. Congress soon passed the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts and created the US Environmental Protection Agency.
