Association of Vermont Conservation Commissions

Cold Hollow to Canada (CHC) is a Regional Conservation partnership that covers 7 towns in the Northern Green Mountain Biophysical region in Vermont. See the separate, "Cold Hollows to Canada" conservation story for overarching information about the creation of this initiative. This story focuses on the private woodlot partnerships that CHC has engaged in.

CHC has initiated a number of projects but one of note is the pilot peer-to-peer project, Cold Hollow Woodlots, that includes 12 landowners that are focused on managing their properties together at a landscape scale. This group of landowners meets four times a year to walk one another's woodlots and talk about projects and issues. The group has been selected by the US Forest Service in a pilot project to address climate change mitigation and adaptation on private lands. In this project each management plan was evaluated using criteria from the US Forest Service, and then a landscape analysis was completed. This analysis recognized that these landowners were already implementing forest management activities to address the changing climate. This project will continue as we look for ways to enhance strategies and approaches in a more focused manner. In tandem with the climate change analysis, Audubon VT has completed an Interior Forest Bird Habitat Assessment on these properties. With this in mind, we will also incorporate strategies to enhance songbird habitat at the landscape level. Other areas that have been discussed include the recreation use of the lands within the group. We have also put on our gloves and did some hands-on apple tree release on one property. We will continue to meet to help each other meet and expand invididual and collective goals.

The hope is to create these neighborhood projects in each of the towns in our CHC focus area. Eventually these groups could also form a landowner co-operative to enhance timber and wildlife habitat projects in a more economically and socially responsible focus.