Our latest Annual Report, chronicling our many successes and accomplishments from 2020-2021, is now available. Thanks to your support and partnership, we expanded parkland, protected drinking water, and safeguarded wildlife habitat for all to enjoy. More people than ever have access to the Hudson Highlands’ healthy, robust, and resilient green spaces. Thank you for being there for us—and for nature.

Read more on the pages of our Annual Report. If you are inspired by what you read, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution so we can all continue to benefit from nature—when we need it most.

Earlier this year, HHLT welcomed a new Executive Director, Katrina Shindledecker, after more than a decade as our Director of Conservation. Please join us on Saturday, October 9th, from 3-5pm on the lawn at Winter Hill to meet Katrina and welcome her into this new role. Seasonal snacks and beverages will be provided!

The event is FREE, but please RSVP via Eventbrite so we know how many people to expect. Please contact Community Engagement Manager Ashley Rauch with any questions ahead of the event. Note that proof of COVID-19 vaccination will be required for those 12 and over, and masking will be strongly encouraged for everyone. The event will be fully outdoors.

This spring, we announced that Christopher Davis will be generously donating 74+ acres of the 300-acre Garrison Golf Club to HHLT later this year. We plan to permanently protect this land and oversee habitat restoration, while simultaneously working with the community to develop a plan for public access.

Over the summer, we hosted tours of the 74+ acres that allow people to walk the land and bring ideas to the table as we start our community engagement and planning process. Due to high demand, we've added an additional tour on Tuesday, October 12th from 5-6:30pm.

The tour is limited to 12 people, so advance registration is required. More information and online registration is available via Eventbrite. We will add more tour dates/times if interest warrants.

One year ago this month, we launched Relearning Highlands History. The series delivers on a promise we made in our statement on racial inequity to use our platforms to share and amplify stories of and from People of Color throughout the history of the Hudson Highlands.

For the first anniversary, we wanted to revisit the first story of the series, that of Chief (Sachem) Nimham and the Wappinger Tribe’s challenge to the Philipse Patent. We also wanted to reflect on the progress we’ve made, and challenges we’ve encountered, in our anti-racism work over the past year. Read more in the latest issue of Relearning Highlands History. Thank you for “relearning” with us, and please don't hesitate to reach out with any thoughts on the series or our anti-racism work.

Yunus Solakoglu volunteered with HHLT as an Invasive Species Monitoring Intern this past summer. Following Lower Hudson PRISM protocols, he completed a full trailside inventory of the top 14 common invasive species in this region across the portion of the Garrison Golf Course land that is being donated to HHLT. Yunus found 12 of those 14 species on site, so we will have plenty of invasive species management work ahead of us! Yunus's work will be helpful as we plan habitat restoration on the golf course land. Many thanks to our summer Land Management Interns, Adriana and Katie, for their help in teaching invasive plant ID—and thank you, Yunus, for your tremendous work this summer!

The NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets (AGM) is asking for the public’s help in combatting the Spotted Lanternfly (SLF), a destructive invasive pest that feeds on more than 70 plant species and can have a devastating impact on agriculture.

To help combat the Spotted Lanternfly, AGM is asking residents to destroy any SLF adults they find. Later in the fall, the public can help further by destroying SLF egg masses. Residents are encouraged to report SLF sightings outside of NYC using this web reporting tool.

A training webinar hosted by iMapInvasives that will educate volunteers on how to identify SLF will take place October 27th at 1pm. More information on SLF can be found on the AGM website.

Our congratulations to our friends and conservation partners at Westchester Land Trust on the acquisition and conservation of 125 acres in the Town of Cortlandt. The newly protected open space is a critical addition to an existing 2,700-acre conservation corridor within the Croton-to-Highlands Biodiversity Area, which includes the Town’s Hudson Highlands Gateway Park, the Hudson Highlands State Park, and the Appalachian Trail. We are also delighted to be working with WLT to put a conservation easement on the preserve for an added level of legal protection.