Help expand the spectacular High Blue Reservation in Walpole by June 1, 2012!
We need your help today to take advantage of a unique opportunity to expand the Forest Society’s High Blue Reservation in Walpole through the purchase of a beautiful 58-acre forest owned by the Faulkner family.
High Blue was affectionately named by its former owner who travelled there from California to camp every summer. He donated this land to the Forest Society because he wanted everyone to experience those perfect, crystal clear days at High Blue with its expansive views of Mt. Monadnock to the southeast and across the Connecticut River Valley and Vermont to the west.
The Faulkners are willing to sell their property to us in memory of their late father, John C. Faulkner, who also adored this place. This land is the highest point in Walpole, with panoramic views to the east looking across the Monadnock-to-Sunapee landscape and the Ashuelot River Valley.
Complementing High Blue Reservation’s western and southeastern views, the Faulkner land offers expansive views to the east just a short walk away. This land is also a focus for the vision of a “Ridge to River Greenway Corridor” proposed by the Walpole Conservation Commission. With several properties protected along the Connecticut River, this parcel provides an anchor on the ridgeline.
The Faulkner family has always welcomed hikers to enjoy the trails across their land in this popular hilltop area. If we are successful, the trail will be upgraded and connected to a larger network of trails leading to the High Blue Reservation.
The Faulkner land contains healthy, continuous forests that help protect water quality in headwaters streams that feed the Connecticut River, and provides for a myriad of wildlife and birds.
We have raised most of the $56,000 needed to purchase the property and cover transaction and stewardship costs through the generosity of a few local donors. But we must raise the remaining $12,000 by June 1. Your gift today will help ensure that this land remains open to the public, ecologically healthy, and visually intact. 
Help conserve 80 acres of prime agricultural farmland and forest by June 30, 2012!
There is a beautiful working farm close to the center of Weare that the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests would like to protect from development forever.
The land is not only important for local agricultural production, but also for its scenic values, the local water resources it protects, and the public recreation benefits it provides to the community, including access for walking, fishing, hunting, and wildlife viewing.
Today we have an incredible opportunity to preserve 80 acres of farm and forest on the historic Purington Farm through the purchase of a conservation easement, to keep it as a working farm and to protect it from development forever.
We have raised most of the $321,000 project costs through the generosity of the local Mildred Hall Trust Fund, the Weare Conservation Commission, and other foundations.
But we must still raise the remaining $40,000 by June 30, 2012. We hope you will help by making a generous donation to this special conservation effort today.
This picturesque landscape enhances the pastoral character of the town and adds to the necklace of conservation properties surrounding Weare’s town center. It abuts the Forest Society’s Zephaniah Breed Forest, which also links to Weare’s Holly Hill conservation land. Protection of the Purington land will continue to provide public access for walking, fishing, hunting and wildlife viewing.
The land stretches 1,400 feet along Breed Brook, a great fishing stream and an important tributary that helps protect water quality in the Piscataquog River.
The forests, stream, and fields on this land also provide excellent habitat for larger forest-dwelling mammals such as moose, bear, bobcat, and fisher, and a myriad of smaller mammals, birds and amphibians.
Anyone who lives in or near Weare knows how quickly open space can disappear. With your help, we can keep this important land from being lost forever to development. Please help us protect the active Purington Farm by making a donation today.
Help the Forest Society Fight Northern Pass
More than a century ago, the Forest Society fought to protect New Hampshire's forests from the devastation wrought by unsustainable logging practices. During the 1800s, private landowners in New Hampshire's North Country laid waste to entire landscapes, cutting and hauling millions of board feet of pulp and lumber out of the White Mountains with no thought to future resources or the damaging consequences of aggressive overcutting.
These abuses motivated the Forest Society to advocate for the passage of the Weeks Act, which led to the creation of the White Mountain National Forest.
Today, New Hampshire's forests face a new threat: Northern Pass.
This high-voltage electricity transmission project would involve the construction of 180 miles of giant steel towers from the Canadian border to Deerfield, just south of Manchester.
The Forest Society believes that this project as it's currently proposed will be as bad for New Hampshire, its people, its economy, and its forests as the unsustainable over-logging practices of the 19th century once were.
Northern Pass devalues forests and lands. Our state's picturesque landscapes bring millions of visitors to New Hampshire every year and are a cornerstone of our tourism economy. At 135 feet, these obtrusive towers would be much taller than the surrounding trees, dominating the landscape and permanently altering the ground over which they crossed. The proposed transmission lines would have a severe impact on both our natural landscape and scenic views and would lower property values on which landowners and communities depend.
Northern Pass threatens already conserved lands. Lands that have been permanently conserved – including the White Mountain National Forest – have been protected to prevent the very kind of degradation proposed by Northern Pass. We have a legal and ethical obligation to defend the public benefits of these lands from unnecessary commercial developments like Northern Pass.
Northern Pass threatens local renewable energy suppliers. The Northern Pass proposal will jeopardize local markets for wood-energy and the jobs they support.
Northern Pass is bad for New Hampshire.
If you believe as we do that these towers would cost the state more jobs than they would provide, would lower property values, and would create an unnecessary and permanent scar on New Hampshire's landscape, please help us.
Please donate to the Trees NOT Towers campaign. Your contribution will be used exclusively to fight the proposed Northern Pass.
We don't fight battles on this scale very often. But when the threat to our landscape, our economy, and our way of life is real, the Forest Society rises to defend them.
Please join us.
Make your check payable to Forest Society/Northern Pass. For more information about making a donation, please contact Susanne Kibler-Hacker at 603-224-9945, or email  .
For details about the Northern Pass project, or to receive regular updates about Northern Pass and opportunities to make your voice heard, visit www.forestsociety.org/np.
Help Us Spread the Word about Forest Society Reservations
In an increasingly uncertain world, there's comfort in knowing that there are special, quintessential pockets of our state where our natural values still grow strong.
The Forest Society owns more than 165 reservations in over 95 New Hampshire communities. We invite you enjoy our properties, to return to your roots and reconnect with the natural world. We conserved these lands to save a place for wildlife, to promote sustainable forestry, and to share their natural beauty and tranquility with Forest Society members and visitors.
The Forest Society owns more than 165 reservations that are open to the public, like the Evelyn H. & Albert D. Morse, Sr. Preserve featured here.
Photo by Jerry and Marcy Monkman, EcoPhotography.
All of our properties are open to the public, and many offer a complete recreational experience with designated parking, kiosks, maps, and trails. We hope you visit these gems and share your experiences with us.
Curious if there's a Forest Society reservation nearby for a casual nature walk or a weekend adventure? We're developing an Online Guide to Our Lands to help you find one. When complete, the Online Guide to Our Lands will feature maps, photographs, trails, descriptions, and a short history of each Forest Society reservation. (The test version can be viewed at here.)
But pulling these resources together will require time and resources – $10,000 worth – to feature the first group of 40 reservations.
We need your help. We've barely scratched the surface, and we still have a long way to go. Please make your gift today, and help us share these special places.
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