Farm & Camp Practices

Recommendations Farm & Camp Practices

Farm & Wilderness already protects the natural resources that work to combat the impacts that humans have on the climate. The organization might consider inviting neighbors, local community members and agencies to the Farm & Wilderness land to discuss opportunities to increase climate resilience throughout the region.

Farm & Wilderness can increase climate resilience in the region by using its educational foundation to promote climate mitigation and adaptation practices to local community members and agencies.

Strategies: • Invite professionals from state agencies, colleges and universities, extension services, and other fields of expertise to give weekend lectures or workshops on a variety of climate-resiliency topics. Offering programming for local people of all ages can help to expand the local network of resiliency.

• Host more informational sessions for the public regarding sustainable farming and forestry practices.

• Include climate change education into camp programming if this is not already done. • Organizations like Shelburne Farms in

Shelburne, VT and The Trustees of Reservation location at Appleton Farms in Ipswich, MA offer public educational programs focused on wildlife habitat conservation and sustainable farming practices.

• Chewonki Foundation in Wiscasset, Maine offers a semester called The Maine Coast Semester to high school juniors that focuses on ecology, liberal arts, and experiential learning styles.

• Nature’s Classroom is an outdoor education program located in various spots throughout

New England. They offer overnight, immersive experiences for students that focus on environmental science, social and emotional learning, and outdoor skills. They also offer visits to schools where they lead a day-long education program.

Utilize space at the Woodward Area to establish a tree nursery for starting seedlings that can be planted in areas with anticipated damage from emerald ash borer. A tree nursery is also an opportunity for Farm & Wilderness to offer native, climate-ready trees to others in the region. Take great care to reduce the likelihood of introducing invasive jumping worms to the soils on the property.

Strategies: • Consider using Borrow’s Field as the location for a tree nursery.

• A tree nursery can start small; a fence to protect seedlings from deer is an essential component, but other start-up costs can be kept low. Akiva Silver’s book Trees of Power:

Ten Essential Arboreal Allies outlines many tree propagation strategies, including starting from seed, propagating cuttings, and air pruning tap-rooted species.

• Create varied genetic stock of each tree species raised in a nursery setting by collecting or ordering seed from different regions within the species’ native range.

• Collect seeds from healthy trees that are living in warmer and/or drier locations. This could promote successful populations of these climate resilient trees in future climate change scenarios.

• Retain any seed from survivors of a dieback event (i.e. hemlock woolly adelgid, emerald ash borer, beech bark disease) for propagation.

• Continue to collaborate with Woodstock Union

High School and the CRAFT program. Although most earthworms are not native to the northeast, jumping worms are spreading rapidly and disrupting the forest understory by devouring the organic matter that herbaceous plants and saplings need in order to grow. Infested forests have little to no understory plants and low rates of regeneration (Görres). Once these worms are introduced, there is currently no way to effectively remove them.

Strategies: • Growing all plants from seed, transplanting bare root plants, and making sure boots and garden tools are cleaned before entering the camp areas is the best way to prevent the worms from being introduced from contaminated soil.

• Add signs to trail heads to alert hikers to follow protocols and clean their boots and gear before entering a trail system.

• Do not accept any soil or compost from other facilities or locations which could contain worms or their cocoons.

• Make sure on-site compost reaches 130 degrees

Fahrenheit, which will kill all life stages of the worms.

Photo credit: Kelly Beerman, Farm & Wilderness

Recommendations | 105

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Resources

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Farm & Wilderness initiated a project with the Conway School to gain an understanding of how to continue tending to and conserving the vast array of sensitive habitats and natural communities found on their property. The organization understands that the climate will continue to change and shift, and recognizes the importance of responding to and working with these environmental changes. This project examines how the landholdings of Farm & Wilderness relate to the regional ecosystem and makes suggestions for a climate resilient future. Forest and wetland communities are examined as well as wildlife movement and habitat. Future practices are recommended in this project, as the organization moves forward being thoughtful and dynamic stewards of the land.