As we announced last month, Michelle Smith, our Executive Director since 2016, will be leaving HHLT at the end of May, and Katrina Shindledecker, HHLT’s longtime Director of Conservation and current Deputy Executive Director, has been named by the Board of Directors as the new Executive Director. Michelle had the opportunity to reflect back on her five years at HHLT, and what the future might hold for the organization, in a recent Perspectives article in the Putnam County News and Recorder.

You can read the full article—A Wake-Up Call On Land Access And Land History—on the PCNR website or download a PDF here.

Stone walls are one of the iconic features of the landscapes in the Hudson Highlands, but have you ever wondered who built all those stone walls?

In this month's installment of Relearning Highlands History, our Director of Natural Resources, Nicole Wooten, spoke to Susan Allport, author of Sermons in Stone: The Stone Walls of New England and New York, about how stone walls can open a door to part of our history that many of us may not be familiar with.

Read the full article, and the stories of some of the hands that built the walls, on our website. You can also learn more about Black history in the Hudson Highlands this month by looking back at Relearning Highlands History articles on People Not Property and Antislavery.

We were thrilled to hear President Biden's ambitious "30% by 2030" vision—his goal to conserve 30% of land and water in the United States by 2030. You can learn more about the 30x30 goal, and what it means for land trusts and the broader conservation community across the country, in this article authored by the Land Trust Alliance's president Andrew Bowman: An audacious and timely conservation challenge.

Thanks to your support, our mission area, which encompasses Philipstown, Putnam Valley, Cornwall and Highlands, has already surpassed the 30% goal with approximately 40% of land protected. The broader New York Highlands region has also surpassed the goal with 31% of land protected.

This does not mean our work is done. We are facing mounting development pressure. Plus, much of our protected land is isolated parkland, and our work now is to create linkages or "green corridors" to keep these lands healthy. This is why we formed the New York Highlands Network (learn more below).

We recently launched a new ArcGIS StoryMap to help us tell the story of why we formed the New York Highlands Network, and how you can get involved. Through the use of maps and images, the StoryMap explains how and why we are working to keep nature connected across the New York Highlands region.

We are grateful to our talented GIS volunteer, Noah Campbell, for creating this StoryMap in close collaboration with our land conservation and outreach teams. You can explore the entire StoryMap on our website.

We're excited to bring back Nature Time! In our first installment of 2021, our land team and Board Member/volunteer Lew Kingsley, who were out clearing trails in Granite Mountain Preserve, demonstrate how to move large logs using chainsaws and peaveys. A peavey is a specialty forestry tool used for log-moving maneuvers. Thanks to expert arborist Lew for teaching us how to properly use one!

Watch all of last year's Nature Time videos, and stay tuned for new videos, on our website.

We are planning a series of webinars starting this spring, but in the meantime we'll be curating webinars from our conservation partners for you in our newsletters. Here are a few coming up this month:

Winter Hiking Tips: Plan, Prepare, Explore with the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference

Women in Science: Underrepresented Environmental Heroes with the NY Department of Environmental Conservation and Scenic Hudson

Amphibian Migrations & Road Crossings Online Training with the Hudson River Estuary Program

Wednesday, February 10th at 4:30pm (register here)

Land in Black Hands with the Kingston Land Trust

Identifying & Reporting Spotted Lanternfly with NY iMapInvasives

Tuesday, February 23rd at 1pm (register here)

(You may want to check out our iNaturalist webinar ahead of time to brush up on your identification skills.)

Lunchtime Learning - How to Build Sustainability in Your Life: a series of webinars by the GreenNY Council on topics like Sustainable Outdoor Recreation, Protecting Pollinators, Stopping Invasive Species, Water Conservation, and much more.

You can also check out recordings of all our past webinars on our website.