After 10 years of celebrating the rural character of the Highlands and working alongside you to preserve it, the Highland Communities Initiative (HCI) is coming to a close.
HCI was originally designed as a temporary initiative to raise awareness of the Highland’s rural character and resources and to build the capacity of communities to protect them, both through increased cooperation among towns, organizations, and citizens and through an infusion of technical and financial support. Ten years later, Highland residents have a come a long way in addressing the region’s needs and taking control of their own future, something in which HCI is proud to have played its own small role.
With new and different challenges now facing the Highlands, and the needs of its communities changing, HCI will be concluding its functions as a program of The Trustees of Reservations. The program’s legacy remains in a network of active and knowledgeable citizens, in acres of protected land, in updated town plans and bylaws, and in publications that will be available to inform future generations making important decisions about their land and their communities.
Over the past decade, The Trustees were fortunate in finding additional funding and partnership opportunities for HCI that stretched the program’s initial five years of funding for twice the expected length. And in that time, The Trustees learned an enormous amount from HCI as it responded to local needs through a small grants program, skill-building workshops, and technical assistance. HCI has demonstrated the value of helping communities create and implement their own plans and community preservation projects, and served as a model for regional conservation partnerships that are now taking root across New England.
The Trustees are taking these lessons to heart, and are incorporating them into the work that the organization does in communities across the state. Thanks in a large part to HCI, The Trustees’ renamed Land and Community Conservation Department is not only working to protect special places across Massachusetts directly, but is increasingly focused on helping community members themselves protect and improve the important lands that define their town’s character and quality of life. Ultimately, by incorporating HCI’s community capacity-building work into The Trustees’ core mission and operation, its impact within the organization will be more effective, extending beyond the Highlands to assist communities across the state.
We are heartened that the Highlands will continue to be well served by several other strong organizations pursuing complementary missions, including The Trustees’ newest partner, the Hilltown Land Trust. This newsletter includes several ways you can continue to stay involved and help your community maintain healthy habitats, access funding for community preservation projects, and proactively shape and steer new residential development.
HCI’s staff will remain hard at work in the region, too. Wendy Sweetser will continue the community conservation work of The Trustees from the Bullitt Reservation in Ashfield, and Mark Wamsley will write and offer communication consulting for local organizations, while furthering his education in graduate school at UMass Amherst.
Our work continues...will yours? The same spirit, creativity, and dedication of Highland residents that drove HCI throughout the years also holds the key to sustaining HCI’s legacy into the future. So, this issue of Highland Happenings looks determinedly forward, spotlighting efforts that have accomplished great things, and are ready-made for someone like you carry them forward in your community. We also hope that you will continue to join us at one of the many upcoming programs at The Trustees’ Bullitt Reservation in Ashfield and throughout the region, to learn more about preserving the Highland’s special places and quality of life that we all hold so dear. And to all of you, our friends and colleagues who have offered your support, participation, encouragement, and inspiration to HCI over these 10 years, you have our deepest gratitude.
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