The Monadnock Ledger-Transcript honored the winners of its “Preserving Our Region” grants during a community reception Monday night.
The awards, backed by grant funding from the Solutions Journalism Network, provided $4,000 each to the Harris Center for Conservation Education’s Turtle Heroes program and the White Mountain Horticultural Research Foundation’s Monadnock Hemlock Initiative.
An independent regional panel evaluated seven project submissions based on potential environmental impact, feasibility, community reach, and originality. Other entries included proposals from the Sargent Village Community Project, Franklin Pierce University’s Institute for Climate Action with the Plymouth Area Renewable Energy Initiative, the Dublin Waste Reduction and Recycling Committee, and the Mason Conservation Commission.
Attendees at Monday’s reception also voted to award the Monadnock Hemlock Initiative the event’s “People’s Choice” distinction.
Sustaining regional wildlife and forests
The Harris Center’s Turtle Heroes project supplies local elementary classrooms with equipment, care guides, and guest speakers so students can raise and release painted turtle hatchlings salvaged from female turtles struck by vehicles while crossing roads to lay eggs.
Susie Spikol, a naturalist and community programs coordinator at the Harris Center, said that because the project’s major start-up costs are already paid, the grant will help keep the program active for years to come by covering speaker fees, equipment replacement, and veterinary bills.
“We’ve already put the initial investment into it, so it really will help us fund for up to five years,” said Spikol. “It’s a great gift to us, really.”
The Monadnock Hemlock Initiative plans to use the funds to buy beetles, a natural predator of the hemlock woolly adelgid, an invasive species killing New Hampshire’s hemlock stands.
“We’re a small group, but the potential payoff is so large and so important to so many people in southern New Hampshire,” said Harry Wolhandler, vice president of the White Mountain Horticultural Research Foundation. “Hemlocks are the foundation of the ecology we have locally and helps create the character of the places that we live.”
Both projects have received their funding and are already underway, with this year’s turtles in classrooms and students from ConVal Regional High School’s Interact Club set to accompany members of the Horticulture Foundation to Cunningham Pond this weekend to scout for adelgid infestations.
