On Wednesday evening, about forty or so people braved the cold to come out to the deKoven House in Middletown to attend a program about woodland management and its role in open space conservation.
Sponsored by The Middlesex Land Trust, along with the Jonah Center for Earth and Art and Middletown’s Environmental Collective Impact Network (Ecoin), the program featured local experts Tom Worthley, UCONN Professor of Forestry from the Middlesex County Extension Center, and Jeremy Clark, a CT Certified Forester and newly elected member of Middletown’s Planning and Zoning Commission. Both Tom and Jeremy gave wonderful presentations and then lead a wide ranging discussion about the goals and process around management plans and managing open space.
Protecting key parcels of open space – woodlands, farms, floodplains, and shrub lands – is important to preserve our community’s rural beauty and biodiversity. And in our role as stewards of these properties, it is important that we set goals and plan to manage them for their optimum benefit to human residents and the many other plant and animal species in our ecosystem.
The meeting was very positive about what can be accomplished, and in the end generated a working group of local commissions, environmental groups and concerned citizens who will focus on the management of town owned land in Middletown.
For more information or to join the working group, contact the Middlesex Land Trust.