Win for Biodiversity Restoration

We are pleased to announce Mount Grace is a recipient of a Cornell Land Trust Grant for 2023. The Cornell Lab’s Land Trust Bird Conservation Initiative awarded grants to 14 land trusts throughout the country to assist with management and restoration of private protected lands, integrate bird conservation and tools into prioritization and planning, and develop partnerships within the birding community to amplify conservation efforts.

The focus of this grant is Guiney Memorial Forest, a 33-acre wildlife sanctuary in Royalston. This small sanctuary has various habitat types, including maturing white pine, hemlock, and hardwood forest as well as a diverse understory, spruce-fir tamarack forested swamp, and more. Funds from this grant will be used to restore habitat and create habitat management demonstration areas that support targeted bird populations and can be used as outreach and educational tools for land trust staff, conservation practitioners, and private landowners.

Restoration work will take place in the context of concurrent work at Birch Hill funded by a US Forest Service Landscape Scale Restoration Grant. Partners include the Ruffed Grouse Society, National Wild Turkey Federation, Massachusetts Department of Fish & Game and Department of Conservation & Recreation. Work will include outreach to birders participating in eBird surveys of the site and outreach to landowners interested in replicating site management techniques to improve bird habitat on their own land.

“Small landowners play a significant role in forest stewardship in southern New England,” says Stewardship Manager Tessa Dowling. “This project is an opportunity to engage local landowners in bird-friendly forestry by demonstrating ecological restoration work on a scale that is relevant to private owners of small forest tracts.”

Learn more about this habitat restoration work and other projects at the upcoming Habitap event at Honest Weight Brewery, Thursday 8/24, 5-7pm HERE.