The Sheffield Land Trust, with over 450 member households and businesses, is one of the most active land trusts in the area. We’re working on three landscape initiatives encompassing many individual conservation projects that will contribute to the economic, agricultural and ecological health of Sheffield.
The Sheffield-Egremont Agricultural, Ecological, and Scenic Corridor will protect more than 2,000 acres in northwest Sheffield and southeast Egremont that connect to more than 5,000 acres of already-protected land, including the Appalachian Trail and state forests and wildlife areas. With the support of people like you, we’ve raised $1.8 million in gifts and pledges toward the $2 million goal for Phase II of the Corridor! In this phase, Maple Shade Farm along Sheffield-Egremont and Lime Kiln Roads will be protected, as well as key fields, forest and wildlife areas at the western end of the Corridor along Route 41 in Sheffield and Egremont. That’s in addition to what we’ve previously secured in the Corridor—165 acres of field, forest and farm housing on Bow Wow Road, the 130-acre Quarry Hill Farm on Sheffield-Egremont Road, and 58 acres of wildlife corridor between the Appalachian Trail and Lime Kiln Road.
Sheffield has more farms than any other town in the Berkshires, but development pressures are making farmland unaffordable for farmers. The Housatonic River Corridor Agricultural & Ecological Initiative preserves an important riparian corridor and watershed including extensive blocks of farmland and wildlife areas on both sides of the Housatonic River, much of which is an historic landscape dating back to early Sheffield. Our most recent project, the Brunnschweiler Agricultural Preservation Restriction, will protect almost 300 acres of tillable farmland, pasture, woodland, ponds and wetland, including farm buildings. The property, visible from the river, Boardman Street, Route 7, the Appalachian Trail and the Covered Bridge, is economically important for our local dairy industry and tourism and is along the proposed Berkshire Bikepath route. Within the Housatonic River Corridor, we have previously protected seven other farms representing nearly 1,000 acres of fields, forest and wildlife areas!
This year we will be improving the footbridge across Schenob Brook which winds through the Community Recreational & Educational Trail Network in the center of Sheffield. The trail runs through lovely uplands and wetlands on two forested properties adjacent to the Southern Berkshire Regional School District campus, a path that students have unofficially used for years. These properties are the northeastern anchor of the Schenob Brook Area of Critical Environmental Concern in which Sheffield Land Trust has already helped to conserve 11 properties representing over 1,000 acres of sensitive habitat. By conserving these properties and maintaining the trail, the Land Trust gives students another way to walk safely to school and provides a lovely footpath for anyone looking for a leisurely walk in the woods. The properties will be available as outdoor classrooms, and we hope to eventually link these trails to each other and to the school’s interpretive nature trail.
To carry out our work on projects within these landscape initiatives, we ask for your continued support. Every contribution is important and greatly appreciated. Your contributions make our success possible; it’s a simple fact that we can’t exist without the support of our members. Thank you, in advance, from all of us at the Sheffield Land Trust!
To renew your membership or become a member, please print and mail our donation or pledge form. Contributions to SLT are tax-deductible.
Gifts of $1,000 or more, multi-year pledges, challenge grants and bequests are ways that you can help SLT achieve its operating and project fund raising goals! View SLT's most recent IRS Form 990.
