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September 28, 2004
Walton, N.Y. - Why would a community foundation based in
New York City give a $100,000 grant to help the Watershed
Agricultural Council generate resources to monitor agricultural
easements on Catskill farms? The same reason The City of
New York also announced a matching grant of $100,000 to
endow the Council's easement stewardship fund. Billions
of gallons of clean drinking water flow to the Big Apple
from Catskill farm and forestland each day, and all the
while, many different tools are used together to insure
the quality and abundance of that unfiltered water supply.
Grant makers at The New York Community Trust understood
this when they sent the check to the Watershed Agricultural
Council's fund for monitoring conservation easements on
farms.
The New York Community Trust was established eighty years
ago as a public charity. Today, it manages more than 1,700
charitable funds, administering assets of $1.8 billion. The
trust founders envisioned a community of donors who could
work collectively to see their contributions make a difference.
For the Watershed Agricultural Council, which is just beginning
to take its place in the Catskill region as a land trust,
“The grant enabled us to leverage matching funds from The
City and provide the financial foundation to steward easement-protected
farms in to the future, ” according to Easements Program Manager,
Bill Brosseau.
Currently, thirteen farms with a total of 4,898
acres participate in the program, in which landowners sell
the development rights from their farms. The program staff
plans to contract with about 12-15 farms per year over the
coming years in hopes of maintaining farmland in the area,
which, while not immediately threatened by conventional
sprawl, is experiencing increasing development pressure
since 9/11. Conservation easements are one important tool
that allows farmers to continue to make a living in agriculture
while conserving their land permanently for agricultural
use.
When land is set aside for farming, upstate and
downstate communities both reap benefits. Keeping land available
for agriculture while improving farm management practices
minimizes development, which can increase pollution of rivers
and streams; reduces the potential for paved roads and roofs
which pass storm water directly into drains instead of filtering
it naturally through the soil and decreases ground water
recharge, lowering drinking water quality for everyone and
reduces the health of stream habitats. of The New
York Community Trust comments, “.
9-28-04/ajh
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