Why was forester Phil Benjamin presenting in the Trust's Community Conservation Barn earlier this month? And who was in the audience?

For the past few years, Wildlands Trust has brought together southeastern Massachusetts town open space committee members, conservation agents, conservation commissioners, and land trust committees together for quarterly Open Space Forums. These forums are held to help share information about how towns have handled challenges on managing their open space, how they have effectively utilized funding sources, how they have found success with public outreach, and much more.

Not only do Open Space Forums help facilitate open discussion, information sharing, and collaboration, but the Trust invites various professionals to present on relevant and interesting conservation topics. On November 9, over twenty local conservation workers gathered in the Community Conservation Barn to learn about forest stand health and active management, invasive species control, and wildlife habitat from Certified Forester and Director of the Mass Forest Alliance Phil Benjamin.

Previous Open Space Forum headlining topics have included: Forest Health Management, Trail Design, Signage & Amenities, Social media for Public Outreach, Conservation Partnerships & LAND Grants, Climate Adaptation, and GIS Habitat Mapping. At our next forum we will be presenting on the topic of building ADA Accessible Trails.

We'd like to thank Phil Benjamin and all of our past presenters and attendees for continuing to make these forums meaningful and useful for local conservation efforts.

If you are a conservation professional and would like to be included in the invites please contact Ryan Krapp, Community Conservation Program Manager at rkrapp@wildlandstrust.org.