Stowe Land Trust

Stewardship programin fy23, Stowe Land Trust (slt) received a $1,500 private donation that covered the costs of overhauling our conserved lands monitoring system to adopt landscape Land conservation software. Slt's adoption of landscape has enabled us to move to technology-driven conserved lands documentation and reporting, with an estimated time savings of 800% over our old paper documentation and reporting method. It has also streamlined the organization of slt conserved lands data and has enabled our team of volunteer Land stewards who help caretake slt conserved properties to move to a simple and accurate way to report their visits and stewardship activities. To expand our stewardship capacity in fy23, slt contracted with the university of Vermont to host a field naturalist m.s. Graduate student who completed a comprehensive ecological assessment of the slt-conserved adams camp property in august 2023. The results of the assessment will inform the property's recreation management plan, whose update is set to occur in fy24. Slt also created a new 11-month americorps lands and trails steward position in september of 2023 which will increase our stewardship capabilities for fy24.slt received a $1,000 oakland foundation grant and matched it with general operating funds and recruited over 80 hours of volunteer labor alongside professional contractors to redeck two bridges, rebuild a third, and replace multiple sections of puncheon in poor condition along the meadow trail at wiessner woods. Slt contracted with timber and stone, llc to conduct the bridge work and oversee volunteer labor on one of the bridge redecking projects. Slt volunteer Land stewards spent a total of 146 reported hours during fy23 monitoring their adopted Land Trust properties and conducting trail maintenance activities for us. Slt stewardship staff also hosted a workshop series during summer 2023 focused on supporting slt's volunteer Land stewards and conserved landowners in caring for slt-conserved lands. The trainings included a "trail maintenance 101" workshop, an "identifying and removing invasive plants" workshop, and a "great nature phone apps" workshop. Additionally, slt threw our annual volunteer celebration, trained our volunteer Land stewards to use the landscape phone app for trip reports, and hosted an adams camp field ecology walk and a field program for a university of Vermont class to introduce students to conservation easements. These fy23 stewardship outreach activities totaled 230 attendee hours.other stewardship tasks undertaken by slt during fy23 and paid for using general operating funds included 87 hours of volunteer group labor removing invasive plants from slt-conserved properties, 135 volunteer group hours caring for existing slt trails, and 13 individual volunteer hours of chainsaw work after the december 2023 bomb cyclone. In fy23, slt inventoried its stewardship supplies and purchased new tools integral to our Land stewardship.education & outreach programslt had a full season of public programing in fy23 connecting 867 participants with the benefits of conserved Land and conservation practices. These programs included educational workshops, a benefit concert and running race, gleaning blueberries, library events and a foraging walk, and were undertaken with a variety of community partners, including lamoille housing partnership, Stowe public schools, salvation farms, Stowe cider, Stowe trails partnership, Stowe free library, migrant justice, Stowe mountain, got weeds, green mountain club, Vermont housing and conservation board and many more. Thanks to an expanded partnership between Stowe Land Trust and the Stowe public schools, we are getting more kids outside and inspiring the next generation of Land stewards. The learning landscapes program is a national effort which aims to build accessible outdoor classrooms within a 10-minute walk of schools and to support educators in utilizing those classrooms year-round for interdisciplinary instruction. These spaces and supports will allow teachers to bring their lessons outdoors deepening the connections between their students and the place they live, and providing numerous benefits for student learning, behavior, and development. This past summer the partnership broke ground by establishing the first classroom at Stowe middle-high school. The planning and execution of this classroom was spearheaded by a dedicated coalition of educators, administration, and Land Trust staff. Land protection program slt continued to work on strategic planning and landowner outreach with the shutesville hill wildlife corridor initiative in fy23. Slt spent $5,000 on appraisal and option to purchase expenses in fy23 for a property within the internationally important corridor and went on to successfully purchase and conserve the 83-acre property in fy24 thanks to assistance from the Vermont housing and conservation board, the nature conservancy, canadian friends of Stowe Land Trust, Vermont Land Trust and support from community members.