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PEOPLE MAKING A DIFFERENCE
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Tom Howe was a beloved friend and colleague before his sudden death in January 2021. Tom was instrumental in helping conserve key landscapes in New Hampshire, including the Belknap Range (pictured at right).
Honoring Tom Howe, A Lion of Conservation
By Jack Savage
The Conservationist of the Year Award honors people whose work to promote and achieve conservation is exemplary. They are people whose actions have made a difference not just in their own backyards but also have advanced the protection and stewardship of land statewide.
In our conservationist of the year, we look for those who stand out in the magnitude of the action they undertook. Past recipients include Senator Judd Gregg; writer John Hay; Governor John King and his wife, Anna King; descendants of John Wingate Weeks; and longtime President/ Forester Paul Bofinger—the only staff member who has been so honored.
Until now.
As many of you know, we lost a friend, colleague, and lion of conservation when Tom Howe died in January 2021. His sudden passing caused us, and our conservation partners around the state, to appreciate anew the astounding breadth of Tom’s lifetime of achievements.
His impact on the people and places of our state was profound. This year, we are humbled to honor our friend and colleague, Tom Howe, as the 2021 Conservationist of the Year, our highest award.
Following Tom’s death, there was an outpouring of grief, along with eloquent tributes. One such tribute read as a Conservationist of the Year nomination, composed by Jamey French and Sylvia Bates.
They wrote from the perspective of their roles with the Land Trust Alliance, and I will paraphrase their tribute to Tom here:
“Tom was the senior director of land conservation at the Forest Society. Over his 25-year career, he completed 158 projects that helped protect nearly 35,000 acres. He also conserved his family's own 26 acres of farm and forest land. He was a founding director and board member of the Gilmanton Land Trust in his hometown. Tom put his keen mind and determined spirit to his work, and his legacy is written in the New Hampshire landscape. Caring, empathetic, always leading by example, he was a mentor to many, especially the younger staff at the Forest Society.
“Respected by his peers nationally, the Land Trust Alliance frequently benefited from Tom's deep knowledge and expertise. His numerous contributions to Rally workshops, webinars, and discussion forums have helped to educate and inspire young land conservationists from coast to coast.
“We will miss his generous spirit, kind heart, and sheer goodness. He was one of the finest people we have ever known. We take solace in what he leaves behind: a legacy of protected land and a new generation of conservationists to follow in his footsteps.
In addition to the 2021 Conservationist of the Year Award, the Forest Society will be remembering Tom in several ways.
From left, Tom visits the Forest Society’s newly protected Ammonoosuc River Forest in December 2020. Tom’s wife, Sarah Thorne, spoke about his legacy when she accepted the Conservationist of the Year Award on his behalf at the Annual Meeting.
In the months since Tom’s death, nearly 200 people made memorial gifts to the Forest Society in his memory, and, fittingly, the purposes of these gifts ranged from land protection to stewardship to education. In recognition of Tom’s love of nature, we will be placing a stone bench at the overlook on Pine Mountain, part of the Morse Preserve, where an expansive view of his beloved Belknap Range does the soul good.
Also, Tom’s final land conservation project was the protection of 257 acres along the Ammonoosuc River in Bethlehem. It is 1.8 miles of trout stream that he loved. A new trail at the Ammonoosuc River Forest will be dedicated to Tom when it is complete, hopefully in 2022.
And finally, as we continue on a quest to make Forest Society reservations welcoming, inclusive, and accessible places, we are investing in interpretation at our reservations—most recently by installing a plaque recognizing the James Due family, an African American family that owned and farmed the Welch Farm and Forest Reservation in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. In September, the New Hampshire Black Heritage Trail unveiled a marker recognizing the story and contribution of the Dues. We know Tom would have celebrated this addition.
At the Forest Society’s Annual Meeting in September at Creek Farm in Portsmouth, we presented Tom’s wife, Sarah Thorne, their son, Peter Howe, and Sarah’s mother and sister, the Conservationist of the Year Award. I was honored to present this award to them, for Tom, on behalf of our Board of Trustees and the Forest Society’s 10,000 members.
Jack Savage is the president for the Forest Society.
Book Your Virtual Screening Today
Released in spring 2020, The Merrimack: River at Risk tells the story of one of America’s most threatened rivers and what can be done to save it. Produced by the Forest Society and directed by Jerry Monkman of Ecophotography, the full-length documentary is now available to be screened by organizations and businesses at virtual events.
