Preserving Skiff Mountain
Posted: 09/18/2009 04:23:51 PM PDT
Anyone can see white-tailed deer on their land. On Skiff Mountain in Kent, you see black bear and bobcat.
"We have seen moose up here,'' said Dennis DePaul.
DePaul is a relative newcomer to the place -- he's only lived on Skiff Mountain for a dozen years. His wife, Katherine Skiff Kane, however, is a member of the seventh generation of Skiffs to live on the mountain since Nathan Skiff settled there in 1761.
Skiff Mountain is the ridge of land that runs parallel to Route 7 north of the town center, extending up into Sharon. It is a beautiful place.
"You stand up there and you can see the world,'' said Kent First Selectman Ruth Epstein.
And it's mostly unfragmented forest with few roads or intrusions of development. If all the preserved land there, including Macedonia Brook State Park, is added together, there are about 7,000 acres of woods.
"It's one of the wildest places in western Connecticut, in the whole state,'' DePaul said.
"It's important for clean water, for clean air and for what climate change will bring us,'' said Tim Abbott of the Housatonic Valley Association's Greenprint Project. "If our climate changes, animals may need big open spaces like this.''
Which is why there were across-the-board cheers this week when the Trust for Public Land announced that six landowners on the mountain have agreed to put permanent conservation easements on 705 acres on the mountain, protecting them from development.
What made the achievement so impressive was all the parties involved -- the six landowners, the Trust for Public Land, the state Department of Environmental Protection, the U.S. Forest Service and the state's federal congressional delegation, which helped win $1.97 million in funding through the Forest Legacy Program to preserve the land.
Lisa Bassani of the Connecticut chapter of the Trust for Public Land said the work took years of negotiations to complete. The price the landowners got for the easements was far less that what they would receive that if they put the land on the open market, she said.
But DePaul said there was also a mutual understanding among the landowners of how beautiful Skiff Mountain is and why it needs to be preserved.
"We have done well by this land,'' he said. "And there's a real sense of stewardship. It makes much more sense to preserve than sell it. It's much more important than the value you can put on it with a dollar bill.''
Contact Robert Miller
at bmiller@newstimes.com
or at 203-731-3345.
_________________
Posted: 09/18/2009 04:23:51 PM PDT
Anyone can see white-tailed deer on their land. On Skiff Mountain in Kent, you see black bear and bobcat.
"We have seen moose up here,'' said Dennis DePaul.
DePaul is a relative newcomer to the place -- he's only lived on Skiff Mountain for a dozen years. His wife, Katherine Skiff Kane, however, is a member of the seventh generation of Skiffs to live on the mountain since Nathan Skiff settled there in 1761.
Skiff Mountain is the ridge of land that runs parallel to Route 7 north of the town center, extending up into Sharon. It is a beautiful place.
"You stand up there and you can see the world,'' said Kent First Selectman Ruth Epstein.
And it's mostly unfragmented forest with few roads or intrusions of development. If all the preserved land there, including Macedonia Brook State Park, is added together, there are about 7,000 acres of woods.
"It's one of the wildest places in western Connecticut, in the whole state,'' DePaul said.
"It's important for clean water, for clean air and for what climate change will bring us,'' said Tim Abbott of the Housatonic Valley Association's Greenprint Project. "If our climate changes, animals may need big open spaces like this.''
Which is why there were across-the-board cheers this week when the Trust for Public Land announced that six landowners on the mountain have agreed to put permanent conservation easements on 705 acres on the mountain, protecting them from development.
What made the achievement so impressive was all the parties involved -- the six landowners, the Trust for Public Land, the state Department of Environmental Protection, the U.S. Forest Service and the state's federal congressional delegation, which helped win $1.97 million in funding through the Forest Legacy Program to preserve the land.
Lisa Bassani of the Connecticut chapter of the Trust for Public Land said the work took years of negotiations to complete. The price the landowners got for the easements was far less that what they would receive that if they put the land on the open market, she said.
But DePaul said there was also a mutual understanding among the landowners of how beautiful Skiff Mountain is and why it needs to be preserved.
"We have done well by this land,'' he said. "And there's a real sense of stewardship. It makes much more sense to preserve than sell it. It's much more important than the value you can put on it with a dollar bill.''
Contact Robert Miller
at bmiller@newstimes.com
or at 203-731-3345.
_________________