PHASE I
In the early years there was popular support for the fund and voters at
Warren Town Meeting regularly approved annual contribution up to
$100,000. It was the roaring '90s before Act 60/68. Taxes were
moderate, jobs plentiful, and there was a sense that the town was at
risk from over development.
The first project was to protect the lands around Blueberry Lake and to
secure public access. This multi-year project cost on the order of
$300,000. The result was that the town conserved an ecologically
productive and sensitive area and provided public access for recreation.
PHASE II
After the success of conserving Blueberry Lake, the conservation
commission directed its attention and resources to conserving open
farmland that, along with the mosaic of compact villages and forested
uplands, have come to define the Vermont landscape and rural aesthetic.
It is this pattern of vibrant town centers, working farms and deep
forests that richly contributes to our sense of place and that is
central to our tourist economy.
With the support of Warren taxpayers and in conjunction with other
public and private funds, the conservation commission helped conserve a
series of highly visible farm-scapes, first up on the east Warren
plateau and most recently along the Route 100 corridor.
It has been a good, noble start, but there is much still to do.
Development pressure, climate change, pollution and the spread of
invasive non-native species have unleashed an epoch defining worldwide
decline and extinction of plants and animals. Largely because of human
activity, a great deal of nature is ill or injured and, in the case of
extinction, dead and gone forever.
As it is for the world, so it is for Vermont.
PHASE III
Although many parts of the Vermont environment have been degraded by
human activity we had much to begin with and much of our native nature
remains. Vermont's forests, for example, have world significance as a
summer breeding ground for over 100 species of neo-tropical songbirds,
many of which are in decline, threatened or endangered.
In the intermountain areas of Vermont (such as the Mad River Valley)
perhaps the single greatest threat to these birds and to far-ranging
mammals such as black bears, bobcats, coyotes, moose and deer is
habitat loss. To be successful, deep forest birds and far-ranging
mammals need large tracts of contiguous forests that stretch across the
range of high-elevation retreats, mid-elevation mast stands and
low-elevation wetlands.
Vermont is blessed with significant federal and state forests and
parks, but as great as these are they are not large enough nor often
ecologically diverse enough to support the needs of far-ranging
species. The biological diversity of our area is dependent on effective
linkages or wildlife corridors that connect undisturbed core habitats
with one another.
A Phase III initiative of the Warren Conservation Commission is to
recommend future development that looks at core forest habitat and the
sensitive corridors that connect them. Our goal is to provide for
growth and development while maintaining the town's rich natural
heritage and biological diversity.
As to, why bother? It is more than a desire to live in a pretty town,
though its beauty can take your breath away. It is the realization that
we do not live so much in a Cartesian -- mechanistic --
cause-and-effect world as one that is relativistic: that we are part of
a great plexus, interconnected, interdependent, and in coexistence.
Biological diversity is not a prop on the stage of our lives, and is
not a luxury; it is integral to our health and prosperity, as important
and as intimate as the air we breathe or our sense of love.
This Friday, December 4, American Flatbread will bake in benefit for
the Warren Conservation Reserve Fund to support its important work.
Schenk is the founder and president of American Flatbread. He lives in Warren.
