The Quabbin-to-Cardigan Partnership (Q2C) today announced the recipients of its eighth round of Land Conservation Grants, which help underwrite conservation projects that protect ecologically important forests in the highlands of western New Hampshire and north central Massachusetts. In the latest round, the Q2C Partnership awarded grants totaling $90,152 to seven projects that will conserve a total of approximately 4,442 acres of land. The total value of the land to be protected in the latest grant round is conservatively estimated at $11 million.

The two-state Quabbin-to-Cardigan region spans one hundred miles from the Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts northward along the western spine of New Hampshire to the boundary of the White Mountain National Forest. Encompassing approximately two million acres, the region is one of the largest remaining areas of intact forest in central New England, and is a key headwater of both the Merrimack and Connecticut rivers.

The Q2C conservation grants are guided by a strategic plan that prioritizes the region’s most ecologically significant forests, and key connections between them for wildlife passage and human recreation. All projects are on a strictly voluntary, willing-seller/donor basis. Sixty-two percent of the acres protected in the latest grant round are located within areas identified as conservation priorities in the Q2C land conservation plan – falling within either “conservation focus areas” ranked as the most ecologically critical lands in the region, or “supporting landscapes” that buffer and connect the core focus areas. The funded projects are:

Gross Farm Conservation Restrictions, Petersham, MA
Sponsor: Town of Petersham
Acres Conserved: 229
Protection Method: conservation restriction
Q2C Grant Award: $10,000
Total Project Costs: $400,000

Silver Lake Eastside, Harrisville, NH
Sponsor: Harris Center
Acres Conserved: 194
Protection Method: conservation easement
Q2C Grant Award: $16,570
Total Project Costs: $2,037,043

Osgood and Hurd Hill, Nelson, NH
Sponsor: Harris Center
Acres Conserved: 578
Protection Method: conservation easement
Q2C Grant Award: $13,430
Total Project Costs: $802,856

Farnsworth Hill Forest-Colby Tract, Washington, NH
Sponsor: Society for the Protection of NH Forests
Acres Conserved: 50
Protection Method: fee purchase
Q2C Grant Award: $5,295
Total Project Costs: $54,722

Addition to Monadnock Reservation-Marlborough, NH
Sponsor: Society for the Protection of NH Forests
Acres Conserved: 49
Protection Method: fee purchase
Q2C Grant Award: $6,041
Total Project Costs: $160,147

WD Cowls Working Forest, Leverett and Shutesbury, MA
Sponsor: Kestrel Land Trust
Acres Conserved: 3,317
Protection Method: conservation restrictions
Q2C Grant Award: $30,000
Total Project Costs: $7,695,000

Allen project, Marlborough, NH
Sponsor: Monadnock Conservancy
Acres Conserved: 24
Protection Method: conservation restrictions
Q2C Grant Award: $8,816
Total Project Costs: $82,755

With this latest round of projects the Q2C grants program has funded 71 separate projects that have conserved almost 25,000 acres of land.

The Q2C grants program is privately funded and administered by the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests on behalf of the Quabbin-to-Cardigan Partnership. Non-profit land trusts, municipalities, and state agencies that have land conservation as a primary function are all eligible to apply for a Q2C land conservation grant.

Launched in 2003, the Quabbin-to-Cardigan Partnership is a collaborative effort of more than twenty private organizations and public agencies working on land conservation in the Q2C landscape. Over the past ten years, the partners have worked with interested landowners to permanently protect an additional 90,000 acres of land in the region – 62,000 acres in New Hampshire and 28,000 acres in Massachusetts — an increase of almost 22% over 2002 levels.

For more information about the Q2C Partnership please contact Brian Hotz at (603) 224-9945 or bhotz@forestsociety.org. Information is also available at http://www.q2cpartnership.org

Photo: Jerry and Marcy Monkman, Ecophotography