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Nature Conservancy Protects Important Wetlands in Effingham

Conservation along Wilkinson Brook builds connections with other protected lands.

Wilkinson Brook in Effingham holds some of New Hampshire's most remarkable wetlands. Now, nearly 500 acres—including wetlands and upland buffers—of this system have been protected. Green Mountain is in the background. © Eric Aldrich/TNC

Concord, NH—November 18, 2003—Nearly 500 acres along a unique wetland ecosystem in Effingham have been protected in a deal announced today by The Nature Conservancy.

The area is along Wilkinson Brook, a tributary to the Pine River that's just south of Green Mountain. Effingham is between Ossipee and the Maine border.

Wilkinson Brook holds the state's largest wetland of its type, according to the N.H. Natural Heritage Bureau. This type of fen (a peat-accumulating wetland that receives mineral-rich groundwater) is also one of the best in the state and has several unique natural communities within it. The area has been documented as a conservation priority by the Natural Heritage Bureau and the Conservancy.

The project announced today involves the Conservancy's protection of three tracts near Wilkinson Brook. The Conservancy has purchased two parcels—128 and 100 acres—from the Moulton family on the west side of Wilkinson Brook. Assisting this purchase was a $34,000 federal Wildlife Conservation and Restoration Project grant from the N.H. Fish and Game Department. While the Conservancy will own the properties, the Fish and Game Department will hold a conservation easement. The properties will be open to the public for hiking, hunting, fishing and other traditional activities.

"These properties went up on the market and that signaled a red flag for us," said Duane Hyde, the Conservancy's director of protection in New Hampshire. "There was a real potential threat here of a new landowner coming in who, unlike the previous owner, would practice poor forestry management, which could harm this unique ecosystem. We knew we had to act quickly."

As negotiations began for the Moulton lands, the Conservancy was finalizing a generous and well-timed offer from a neighboring landowner. The Nath family offered to donate to the Conservancy a conservation easement on 270 acres, which adjoins Pine River State Forest, the Moulton tracts and Wilkinson Brook. Naturally, the Conservancy accepted. "This is something we are very pleased about doing," said Kamal Nath, who along with his wife Klara have lived on the property since 1997. The Naths are interested in letting natural processes take their own course on the property. "We want to give nature a chance here," he said.

The newly protected lands are adjacent to the 3,200-acre Pine River State Forest and their protection builds toward conservation connections with nearby protected lands, including Heath Pond Bog Natural Area (1,380 acres), the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forest's High Watch Reservation (1,700 acres), and the Audubon Society of New Hampshire's Watts Wildlife Sanctuary (200 acres). There are also 8,500 acres of working forest in nearby Parsonsfield, Maine, where The Nature Conservancy holds a conservation easement.

"These important and rich wetlands are part of our effort to protect, restore and connect a natural and functioning landscape in the region," said Daryl Burtnett, New Hampshire state director of The Nature Conservancy. "Our efforts here offer hope to future generations that rely on us to look to the land, to our best science, and listen to our hearts when weighing today's threats to habitat and a healthy quality of life."

"When we speak of 'landscape-scale' conservation, it's often hard to visualize what that looks like on the ground," said Mark Zankel, the Conservancy's director of conservation programs in New Hampshire. "In the area of Pine River and Green Mountain, however, the Conservancy and our partners are putting together the pieces of a landscape-scale conservation effort that paints a dramatic picture. With the Conservancy's recent success along Wilkinson Brook, we now have several large core conservation areas located throughout a 50,000 block of relatively unfragmented forest. We also have the remarkable opportunity to create conservation corridors that link those natural areas, allowing plants and animals to move freely over time."

The Conservancy still needs to raise an additional $91,375 to complete this effort.

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The Nature Conservancy is a leading international, nonprofit organization that preserves plants, animals and natural communities representing the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 14 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 83 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific.

Since 1987 The Nature Conservancy in New Hampshire has helped protect more than 119,000 acres of ecologically significant land and currently owns and manages 27 preserves across the state.

Editors: Photos of Wilkinson Brook are available. Contact Eric Aldrich at (603) 224-5853, ext. 26.