Through its “Hudson Hills and Highlands Initiative,” Teatown is building on its four decades of work in community-based, open space protection and nature conservation to share its expertise throughout the entire Hudson Hills and Highlands. We assist civic leaders and the public at large to learn about local environmental issues and craft practical solutions. Teatown’s conservationists, educators, scientists, and volunteers are bringing new enthusiasm, leadership, and resources to the region. We are growing a portfolio of projects that aim at nature conservation and regional ecological health -- for the well being of future generations of people and all species of life.
Current projects, include:
Environmental Leaders Learning Alliance
In January 2008, Teatown launched the “Hudson Hills and Highlands Environmental Leaders Learning Alliance (ELLA),” through a grant from three anonymous donors, the JP Morgan Chase Foundation, and the New York Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River Estuary Program.
The Alliance brings together >100 members of 34 town and village Conservation Advisory Committees, Open Space Committees, and other environmental committees from across the Hudson Hills and Highlands. ELLA members participate in training workshops, share lessons learned, and build collaborations for multi-town solutions to regional environmental issues. (For more details or to join, see ELLA’s website at www.ellahhh.net.)
Teatown serves as the convener and administrator of the Alliance. Dr. Fred Koontz, Teatown’s Executive Director, leads the project with assistance from Alliance Coordinator Stephen Frazer; other Teatown staff working on the project include Mike Rubbo and Phyllis Bock.
In the Hudson Hills and Highlands, town-appointed members of conservation, open space, and other environmental committees serve as volunteer advisors to town councils, planning boards and zoning commissions on critical land use decisions and other important environmental matters. ELLA aims to help these civic-minded individuals to become better advisors, and also provides a much-needed mechanism for improving communication between towns/villages on regional environmental issues that cross political boundaries. The more knowledgeable ELLA members become in relevant technical matters and best management practices, the more effective they will be guiding their town’s zoning and permitting officials, policy decision-makers, and fellow citizens. The Alliance, with its unique learning team approach, also aims to become a model for other regional networks throughout Metropolitan New York, and beyond.
Hudson Hills and Highlands Community Trails Program
In July 2008, Teatown formed a collaborative trail program with the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference. For nearly 100 years, volunteers belonging to the Trail Conference have helped public agencies provide safe and responsible access to open space from New York City west to the Delaware Water Gap and north to the Catskills. For example, their work has made possible the trails in Bear Mountain and Harriman State Parks, and long-distance footpaths in New York and New Jersey, such as the Appalachian Trail and Long Path. Today encompassing a network of 1,700 miles of trails in New York and New Jersey, the Trail Conference is a coalition of 100 clubs (including Teatown Lake Reservation) and 10,000 individual members dedicated to creating, protecting, and promoting the nation’s finest network of foot trails in a major metropolitan region. The Trail Conference also is well known among outdoor enthusiasts for its outstanding hiking books and maps.
The “Hudson Hills and Highlands Community Trails Program” provides assistance to local trail crews in Westchester and Putnam counties. Christie Ferguson leads the program as part of her responsibilities as the Trail Conference’s Regional Representative for the East of the Hudson.
This new collaborative program reflects Teatown’s commitment to expand its work throughout the Hudson Hills and Highlands, and its belief in the value of partnering with other like-minded environmental organizations. It is also our aim that we can develop an improved regional trail network that provides additional recreational opportunities and increases ecological connections between protected areas by creating trail corridors for wildlife.
The success of the Hudson Hills and Highlands Community Trail Program will depend on a strong cadre of volunteers. Trail Conference and Teatown volunteers will have the opportunity to learn about and to participate in trail building, monitoring, and maintenance. At the same time, volunteers will enjoy the outdoors, make new friends, get valuable exercise – and know that they are improving the quality of our regional trails and environment! If you would like to learn more about volunteering for this new program, please contact Christie Ferguson at ferguson@nynjtc.org; Christie maintains offices both at Teatown Lake Reservation and at the Trail Conference’s headquarters in Mahwah, New Jersey.
Choices for Sustainable Living Expo
5th Annual Sustainability Expo, November 7, 2009
Each November, Teatown partners with the
Hudson Highlands Land Trust to hose the
Sustainable Living Expo (at The Garrison, Garrison, NY).
The Expo features "green" exhibits, informative
workshops, local green building tours, and
programming for all ages.
Environmental Leadership in Regional Conservation
Dr. Fred Koontz, Teatown’s Executive Director, serves on a variety of regional environmental committees to strengthen regional efforts to conserve biodiversity and protect ecological services. Recent examples of such work include, Fred’s serving on: 1) Westchester County Deer Task Force; 2) Westchester County Climate Change Task Force, Education and Land Use Committees; 3) Westchester County Climate Change Advisory Counsel; 4) New York State’s Hudson River Estuary Biodiversity Steering Committee; 5) Non-Profit Leadership Summit Planning Committee; and 6) Conservation Café Planning Committee.
Other Teatown staff also serve in regional leadership roles. For example, Dr. Mike Rubbo, Teatown’s Director of Environmental Stewardship, advises graduate students conducting research in the region through his adjunct faculty position at Fordham University; Teatown is a member of the Environmental Consortium of Hudson Valley Colleges and Universities. Phyllis Bock, Teatown’s Director of Education, serves on the Yorktown Conservation Advisory Committee and his active in the New York State Outdoor Educators Association.
Lower Hudson Valley Partnership for Regional Invasive Species Management (PRISM)
Teatown is a member of a regional partnership of local agencies and non-profit organizations, led by The Nature Conservancy’s New York Eastern Chapter and the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, to coordinate efforts to more systematically control invasive plants and animals throughout the Lower Hudson Valley, New York.
This is and important issue for Teatown because its 834-acre preserve has many ecologically damaging invasive plants living on our preserve: Japanese barberry, garlic mustard, Japanese stilt grass, oriental bittersweet, black swallow-wort, mugwart, and more.
What is an Invasive Species? When living in their native ranges, plant and animal populations are kept in balance by natural controls like predators and limited food supplies. When a new species from another part of the world (“non-native”) is introduced, accidentally or intentionally, these balances can be disrupted and the result can be harmful to other species and the ecosystem. While not all non-native species cause problems, some spread unchecked, out competing native plants and animals. Once these non-natives are doing ecological or economic damage, they are called "invasive species."
Invasive species are increasing, and now contribute directly to the decline of one-half of all threatened and endangered species in the United States! They are costing us hundreds of millions of dollars each year in lost ecological services and agricultural damage to farm pastures. Did you know that 20% of the approximately 1,300 plant species living in the Hudson Hills and Highlands are “non-native”? Controlling invasives will require citizen participation through support of new legislation, better management of our own private lands, and by volunteering your labor to remove invasive plants and other pests from the region.
