One of our members has made the news! Way to go Ben, Keep up the good work. Read all about Ben and his efforts to preserve land on Cape Cod. I had the good luck to live with Ben for a year and I can tell you, he is a swell guy. His efforts to conserve land have really made a difference in the lives of the residents of his town.

They also put in a plug for AmeriCorps Cape Cod, a fine and respectable orginization that Sietch members have teamed up with on multiple occasions. You should really give them a look as well.

CAPE COD CHRONICLE, January 11, 2007

Chatham Conservation Foundation, Harwich Trust To Share Staffer

by Tim Wood

CHATHAM — With 579 acres under its control, it’s becoming more and more difficult for the non-profit Chatham Conservation Foundation to monitor and manage its properties. Fifty-five of those acres involve conservation restrictions, which carry a legal requirement that the properties be visited at least once a year.

“People entrust these properties to us, and we realize that annual monitoring is appropriate and necessary,” said CCF President David Doherty. For an all-volunteer board, however, this can be a challenge, and things slip by. Recently, for example, the foundation discovered that someone was storing a boat on its property.

For at least the next year, however, the Foundation will have some help in keeping tabs on its properties. For two days every week, Ben Wright, a former AmeriCorps volunteer, will work on land stewardship issues for the organization, a role he also fills for the Harwich Conservation Trust.

It’s the first time the Chatham Conservation Foundation has hired a paid staff member — outside of its secretary — in its 43-year history, and the first time that the Cape’s oldest land trust has collaborated with the Harwich organization, at 18 years old the Cape’s youngest land trust.

The arrangement benefits both organizations. The CCF gets help in managing its lands, and for the other three days a week HCT retains Wright, its outreach and stewardship coordinator. Because of the Cape’s job market and cost of living, there was a chance he might have to leave the area.

“The Harwich Conservation Trust has been helped greatly by Ben’s services,” HCT President Robert Smith said in a press release. “He has helped build our volunteer base, presented seminars on environmental issues and worked as our stewardship overseer in the field, but our need at this time was not for someone working on a full time basis. There was a risk that Ben might have had to leave the Cape and that would have been detrimental to our progress. By working together with the Chatham Conservation Foundation to provide a full time position, both of our organizations will benefit.”

Wright will work out of the HCT offices on Route 28 in South Harwich, near the Chatham town line, and the Compact of Cape Cod Conservation Trusts, Inc., will provide human resource and payroll assistance. Director and Assistant Director of The Compact of Cape Cod Conservation Trusts. “Staff-sharing is the wave of the future for smaller non-profits,” said Mark Robinson, Executive Director of the Compact. “I believe it is easier and better to find a qualified person like Ben for a full-time job than two or three persons for part-time jobs. And the sharing of experience benefits all the groups.”

Doherty said Wright was hired this past fall for one year to do an inventory of the Foundation’s properties. The goal is to develop a baseline of the organization’s current holdings, a database that will include topography maps, aerial photos, lists of flora and fauna and other details about every parcel.

Wright will also monitor properties. “Property management is becoming more and more of a situation for us,” Doherty said, noting that it isn’t uncommon to find rubbish or debris dumped on Foundation parcels, which are often isolated and out of the way.

After a year, the Foundation’s board of trustees will evaluate the results of Wright’s work and determine if the position should be carried forward, based on what still needs to be done. “I can’t project if it will need to continue, but I can see it happening,” Doherty said.

With HCT’s 317 acres, 131 of which are under conservation restriction, the two organization between them own nearly 900 acres of real estate. Each parcel requires some degree of attention, according to Michael Lach, HCT’s executive director.

“Land stewardship, also called land management, runs the gamut from a simple sign declaring a small roadside parcel protected to a long- range plan for a larger property. Ben’s work on inventorying all properties is important,” said Lach

Wright, originally from the Midwest, came to the Cape in 2004 as an AmeriCorps volunteer focusing on land stewardship issues throughout the Cape. In 2005, he was one of two AmeriCorps members to be given the National Association of Counties Acts of Caring Award. He joined HCT in fall 2005.

“This is an exciting place to be for the field of land preservation,” said Wright. “It is wonderful to be able to continue working on Cape Cod with these two innovative and dedicated land trusts. HCT and CCF have really demonstrated their commitment to land management through this collaboration and I feel very fortunate to have this shared position.
Over the summer I was trying to juggle four part time positions.”

Two other AmeriCorps members will also be helping out both the HCT and CCF. Amber Stonik, of Washington, D.C., is helping HCT with land stewardship and volunteer activities, and Kyle Koch, of New Hampshire, is working with the CCF on property documentation and stewardship.

Last year, 15 former Cape AmeriCorps volunteers were working here full time. In the seven years since the Barnstable County AmeriCorps program was instituted, 133 people have graduated, and some 40 of them have stayed to work here.