Seize the opportunity to participate in a day of valuable insights and practical knowledge at no cost during this Landowner Workshop. Whether you’re a seasoned landowner or considering the legacy of your property, this event is designed to equip you with the tools and understanding needed for shaping the future of your land.
The agenda will include:
1. Welcome and Introductions
2. Conservation and Land Protection Basics
Anna Wilkins, Executive Director, North County Land Trust
3. Planning for the Future of Your Land
Justin Raphaelson, Esquire
4. Land Protection Funding Resources
Jim French, Sterling Land Trust
5. Example from the Field
John Mirick, Princeton Land Trust
6. Questions and Wrap-up
Refreshments will be served.
Registration is requested by March 23rd.
Speaker Bios:
Anna Wilkins, awilkins@northcountylandtrust.org, Executive Director. A native of north central Massachusetts, Anna’s background is in Wildlands Ecology and Natural Resource Management. She has worked in the land conservation community in Massachusetts since 2004 having experience in both the private, non-profit and municipal sectors. Anna serves on the board of the Mass Land Trust Coalition. As a resident of Ashburnham, she volunteers as a member of the Ashburnham Open Space Committee, Conservation Commission, and with the Ashburnham Conservation Trust doing trail work.
Justin Raphaelson is a writer, lawyer, climber, ultrarunner, mountaineer, and conservationist. He also has a passion for taking cross country road trips to explore the great outdoors. Sensing the urgency to inform others of the beauty within our own country, and most importantly, maintaining that beauty for future generations; he started documenting his journeys, eventually publishing a memoir in 2020, Take to the Unscathed Road.
When he’s not at his day job as an attorney, Justin can be found at the local crag or in the mountains. He is a New England boy at heart and is obsessed with the White Mountains and Adirondacks. It has become paramount for Justin to find a way to use his writing and familiarity with the law to raise awareness not only for recreation in the outdoors but for its preservation. He documents his adventures on his blog; jccrosscountry.com. You can also follow along on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
A property and criminal defense attorney based in Worcester, Massachusetts, Justin is a graduate of New England Law-Boston and has a B.A. in History from Clark University. He is also an executive board member of the Greater Worcester Land Trust.
Justin deeply enjoys conservation projects and has worked with a number of climbing organizations over the years such as SNECC, CRAG-VT, and WMCC on access projects.
Jim French. Following a time in the early 1980s as a consulting forester, Jim recently retired after 40 years working with the Metropolitan District Commission and the Department of Conservation and Recreation. He was the chief forester for the Wachusett and Sudbury reservoir watersheds from 1983 to 1993. Concurrent with these duties and for the ensuing 30 years he was the Land Acquisition Coordinator for DCR’s Division of Water Supply Protection, a program that resulted in the purchase both in fee and conservation restriction of 28,000 acres within the Quabbin, Ware River, and Wachusett watersheds. He is a founding member of the Sterling Land Trust where he continues the enjoyable work of helping landowners reach their land protection goals, while managing his family’s multi generation apple farm.
John Mirick, an attorney with Mirick O’Connell in Worcester, is a trustee of the Princeton Land Trust, chair of the Princeton Planning Board, and a member of the Princeton Agricultural Commission. His family’s land in Princeton has been managed under a Ch. 61 Forest Management Plan since 1974. A small portion of the land in the Ch. 61A Agricultural Program is used by a CSA. He will share some of his family’s experiences as forest owners. As a trustee of the Princeton Land Trust, he regularly works with Princeton residents interested in the preservation of open space.
Bookings
Registration is closed for this event.