Connecticut Land Conservation Council      
 

May 31, 2013

In This Issue
Executive Director's Message
June Directors' Summit Schedule
Conservation Finance Survey
NRCS Funding Opps
Service Providers Wanted
Trails Day Weekend and More
Case Law on Board Liability

About CLCC    

The mission of the CT Land Conservation Council is to advocate for land preservation, stewardship and funding, and ensure the long term strength and viability of the land conservation community.

 

To learn more about CLCC, please go to our website:
www.ctconservation.org

Upcoming 

Events   

 

June 1-2

Trails Day Weekend

Statewide

 

June 6

Resilient CT Workshop

New Haven

 

June 6

CLCC Directors' Summit

Mansfield

 

June 11

CLCC Directors' Summit

Torrington

 

Sept. 17-19

2013 Land Trust Rally

New Orleans, LA

More Info here!

Executive Director
Amy B. Paterson, Esq.

 

Steering Committee

Tim Abbott

Litchfield Hills Greenprint

Alicia Betty 

Trust for Public Land

David Bingham

Salem Land Trust

Hunter Brawley

Brawley Consulting Group

Sandy Breslin

Audubon Connecticut

Margot Burns

Lower CT River Council of Governments

Kevin Case

Land Trust Alliance

Stephanie Clark

Joshua's Tract Conservation and Historic Trust

Katchen Coley

Milddletown Conservation Commission 

Jim Gooch

Connecticut Farmland Trust 

Ginny Gwynn

Greenwich Land Trust 

Eric Hammerling

Connecticut Forest & Park Association 

Mary-Michelle Hirschoff 

The Garden Club of New Haven

Elaine LaBella 

Housatonic Valley Association

Connie Manes

Kent Land Trust  

Tom ODell

CT Association of Conservation & Inland Wetland Commissions

David Sutherland 

The Nature Conservancy

Humphrey Tyler

Lyme Land Conservation Trust

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

Executive Director's Message  

  

Dear Friends -

 

Following on the heels of CLCC's hugely successful 2013 Connecticut Land Conservation Conference in March, our Training and Education Committee (TEC) members launched into our 2013 training and roundtable schedule, with events planned through the end of the year.   Here's a sampling of what we have been up to the last couple of months:

  

CLCC-CLEAR Training Collaborative: GPS Applications for Monitoring Land Trust Holdings

On Friday, May 3, 19 board members, staff and volunteers from 17 conservation organizations, including 13 land trusts, attended CLCC's second annual collaborative GPS/GIS training initiative with UCONN's Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR).

 

Using the Haddam Land Trust's Bamforth Preserve as a learning laboratory, CLEAR instructors Cary Chadwick and Emily Wilson once again led participants through classroom and fieldwork using publicly available mapping software and handheld GPS units to measure, plot, photograph and publish interactive maps of monitoring and other stewardship activities. TEC Co-Chair Hunter Brawley was on hand to discuss land trust stewardship responsibilities and strategies for monitoring and enforcing conservation easements.   

 

Class participants were encouraged to share their resulting maps on the CLEAR website, where additional course resources are also posted, including links to the software and websites used in the course, the course folder, and other helpful web resources. Check it out here.  For photos of the event, please click here.

 

GPS Course graduates take note!

At your request, we are putting together a half-day advanced GPS practicum to help you further refine your skills. Stay tuned for more information!

 

CLCC 2013 Regional Directors' Summit Series Underway

Twenty-eight land trust board members joined us for the first two sessions of our 2013 Regional Directors' Summit Series which were held in Norwalk and Prospect, respectively. Co-hosted by our land trust partners and funded by the Fairfield County Community Foundation and the Connecticut Community Foundation, board members spent (a very quick) 90 minutes sharing their challenges, ideas and experiences on a range of topics, including fundraising, communications strategies, stewardship, easement monitoring, and community outreach.  
 
For more insight into the conversations that we have had at Summits from around the state, please click here and check out our meeting notes.

 

Summits are being scheduled throughout the state through the end of the year. Read on for our June schedule, and please join us! Your participation and input are critical to our ability to offer programs and services that address your needs. We look forward to seeing you!

 

With warmest regards,

Amy

 

PS:  The legislative session ends on June 5 -- please watch for our 2013 session recap!

CLCC June Regional Directors' Summits 

Networking - Socializing - Information Sharing

 

CLCC's Regional Directors' Summits provide land trust board members with a unique opportunity to share their experiences and challenges, offer advice on what's working, and get some advice on what could work better for their land trust and their region. Summits are free and open to all board members, with first priority given to land trusts in the host region.  

All meetings are from 7-8:30pm.

 

Thursday, June 6

Former Eagleville School House

898 Stafford Road (Intersection of Route 32 and 275)

Mansfield, CT

co-hosted by Joshua's Tract Conservation and Historic Trust 

 

Tuesday, June 11

NOTE CHANGE OF VENUE!

Warner Theatre

68 Main St.

Torrington, CT

co-hosted by HVA/Litchfield Hills Greenprint and the FRWA

 

Space is limited. RSVP is appreciated. Please contact Amy B. Paterson, CLCC Executive Director at abpaterson@ctconservation.org

Conservation Finance Survey

From the Land Trust Alliance, Conservation Finance Network and The Conservation Fund --

  
Help Us Finance Your Future! The Land Trust Alliance, Conservation Finance Network and The Conservation Fund want to help you meet your conservation goals. Have thoughts on loans and finance training in the conservation community? We want to know. We'll choose one participant at random for a $500 scholarship to the Alliance's Rally 2013 in New Orleans. Hurry! Survey ends June 7
 

NRCS Funding Opportunities

 

Note: While the application deadline for some of these programs is listed as May 31, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has advised us that applications are accepted on a continuous basis all year. If you have a worthwhile project for which you are seeking funding, then NRCS encourages you to submit an application, even if the deadline has passed.

 

Grassland Reserve Program (May 31)

GRP helps landowners restore and protect grassland, pastureland, and certain other lands, as well as provides assistance for rehabilitating grasslands. The program is offered through the 2008 Farm Bill and is jointly administered by NRCS and the Farm Services Agency.  For more information on the GRP, please click here.  

 

Wetlands Reserve Program (May 31)

The WRP helps landowners restore and protect wetland ecosystems on private and tribal lands. They may select either a permanent or 30-year easement, retaining ownership of the land once the easement is in place. For more information on the WRP, please click here.

 

Farm and Ranch Land Protection Program (on-going)

FRPP is a voluntary program that helps farmers and ranchers keep their land in agriculture. The program provides matching funds to government entities and non-governmental organizations for the purchase of conservation easements. For more information on the FRPP, please click here.

 

Conservation Stewardship Program (June 14)

A voluntary program that provides financial and technical assistance to producers who agree to adopt higher levels of stewardship to promote the conservation and improvement of soil, water, air, energy, plant and animal life, and other conservation purposes on private and tribal working lands.  Click here to access the CSP self-screening checklist which highlights basic information about CSP eligibility requirements, stewardship threshold requirements and payment types.

 

For further information on these and all other NRCS programs, please click here.

Regional Conservation Partnership Network -Seeking Service Providers
From Bill Labich, Coordinator, Fairfield County Regional Conservation Partnership
  
Do you have an expertise to share? 

The Regional Conservation Partnership (RCP) Network is creating a list of service providers to post on the RCP Network website and is seeking your input!  If you or someone that you know is a conservation service provider (e.g., expertise in fundraising, grant-writing, GIS mapping, strategic conservation planning, forest stewardship, easement review, easement monitoring, communications, legal, project facilitation, etc.), please take a few minutes to fill out a survey yourself and/or forward it to others in your network.

 

Click here to access the survey.  The survey will close on July 1, 2013.  Whoever fills out the survey by then will be listed on the website as a RCP Service Provider for the duration of 2013.

 

As this form of innovative collaborative conservation continues to grow across the region, together we can make sure that all RCPs have the best tools available to achieve accelerated and enduring conservation success.

 

Any questions? Please contact Bill Labich at blabich@highstead.net

Upcoming Events
  
21st Annual Connecticut Trails Day Weekend -- June 1 - 2

From the Connecticut Forest & Park Association (CFPA)

 

There is no shortage of fun outdoor activities planned for this coming weekend--267 registered outings to be exact, in 153 towns on over 575 miles of trail. The largest National Trails Day celebration in the nation! There will be something for everyone, including hiking, biking, horseback riding, running, trail maintenance, kayaking, educational walks, bird watching, letterboxing, and more.

 

To view the 2013 CT Trails Day Weekend booklet and supplement online, please click here.  See also the newly posted quick lists to view the events listed by type.  Printed booklets can be found at public libraries, outdoor retailers (like REI, EMS, L.L. Bean), Stop & Shop stores, state parks, select YMCAs, and the CFPA office, while supplies last.

 

All are invited to stop by the CFPA headquarters TODAY, May 31 for the CT Trails Day Weekend Kickoff from 1 to 5pm.There will be a cookout from 1 to 2:30pm, followed by a presentation from 2:30 to 4pm by noted photographer Barbara Bosworth. She will have new photos on display, discuss her project on the New England Trail, and demonstrate the use of a large format camera (think "Ansel Adams"). Highlawn Forest Trail walks will be taking place throughout the afternoon from 1 to 5pm. 

 

Resilient Connecticut Workshop & Toolkit:

Building Resilient Communities Together  -- June 6

8:30am - 2:30pm

Kroon Hall, Yale University

195 Prospect St., New Haven, Connecticut

Click here to Register Today! (Lunch included) 

Program includes:

  • Toolkit for Success: Turnkey projects that support environmental protection and deliver economic resiliency
  • Companies that provide products and services that support resilient projects.
  • Organizations that provide communities with programs that work to support sustainability.
  • Building Connecticut's Resiliency Task Force: Mentors to answer your questions and help your community take the first (or next) step towards resiliency.
  • Networking with Connecticut's sustainability leaders.

Connecticut Case Law:  Board Officer Immune From Liability

Re-printed courtesy of Rob Levin, Esquire, from the Maine Land Conservation Law E-Bulletin, May 2013. To receive E-Bulletins, please send a request to rob@roblevin.net
 
A recent Connecticut court decision demonstrates the value of state volunteer immunity laws in protecting volunteers from tort liability exposure. In Sweeney v. Friends of Hammonasset, Inc., 140 Conn. App. 40; 58 A.3d 293 (Conn. App. Ct. 2013), a man was injured after slipping on ice during a nighttime owling outing. The man sued both a nonprofit corporation, as well as its volunteer Board president. The suit claimed that the president was negligent in her supervising, training and oversight duties. The president invoked Connecticut's volunteer immunity statute as a defense.
 
The appellate court upheld the trial court in ruling for the president on summary judgment, finding that Connecticut's volunteer immunity statute (which provides complete immunity) applied and was not preempted by the federal volunteer immunity statute (which provides immunity only for economic losses and not non-economic losses such as pain and suffering).
  
The court pointed to the federal statute's section on preemption, which provides that any state law extending additional protection from liability relating to volunteers would not be preempted by the federal statute. The court also broadly interpreted a director's "policy or decision-making responsibilities" to include supervision, oversight, and training matters, the crux of plaintiff's allegations against the president.
 
It is comforting to see an appellate court issue a broad interpretation of a state volunteer immunity statute. Note that a typical commercial general liability (CGL) insurance policy would provide defense and liability coverage for both Friends and the president in this kind of litigation, as both the corporation and its officers, directors, and other volunteers are generally named insureds. In contrast, a typical directors and officers (D&O) policy would not be of any use here because that sort of policy generally excludes bodily injury and property damage claims.  
Contact Information
 
Amy B. Paterson, Executive Director
CT Land Conservation Council
c/o CT Forest and Park Association
16 Meriden Road
Rockfall, CT  06481
860-685-0785


 
CLCC new 500 pix wide