ACLT in the News

Rural Lands Forum Wrap-Up

April 28, 2022 By Community Relations Manager

By Mary Hoover, Chesapeake Conservation Corp Intern ’21-’22

Rural Lands Forum Educates Citizens and Candidates on Land Preservation

The Sustainable Calvert Network convened a rural lands forum on Thursday, April 21. Held at the aptly bucolic Jefferson Patterson Park, the forum advocated for the importance of preserving Calvert’s rural lands in light of upcoming local elections. The event was attended by Calvert residents and several candidates for Calvert’s Board of County Commissioners, offering a candid setting for citizens to engage in conversation with their future representatives.

Those who spoke at the forum were members of the Sustainable Calvert Network, each representing different roles in the community and providing unique perspectives toward a common vision for Calvert County. Following an introduction by Greg Bowen, Executive Director of the American Chestnut Land Trust (ACLT), President of the Calvert Farm Bureau, Cathy Cosgrove, gave a farm owner’s perspective on the importance of agriculture in Calvert. Cosgrove remarked upon the decline in family farm profitability over time, emphasizing the need to revitalize Calvert’s agriculture going forward. To ensure farms are profitable, sustainable, and affordable for subsequent generations, Cosgrove offered solutions such as buying local, joining the Farm Bureau to endorse beneficial agricultural legislation, and supporting a variety of land preservation programs.

Many of the night’s speakers shared their personal experiences and connections with Calvert’s natural landscapes, reiterating the importance of land preservation in such an ecologically rich county. President of the Calvert Nature Society, Joyce Baki, championed the power of land preservation to give “our children and our grandchildren the opportunity in the future to walk into a forest, or to the bay, or to wherever, and enjoy themselves.” Chris Banks, former President of the Calvert Historical Society, similarly shared her connection to Calvert’s rural lands through the story of her great grandmother Christiana Parran, a passionate landowner in the county’s history. Ben Hance, President of the Southern Maryland Sierra Club, nostalgically relayed several anecdotes about the prior state of the county’s natural lands, as told by family members who lived through Calvert’s building boom and saw first-hand the drastic changes to its natural landscapes. Each of these speakers upheld the importance of Calvert’s natural landscapes to their pasts as well as their futures, expressing strong sentiments towards seeing Calvert’s critical lands undeveloped well into the future.

Scott Knoche, director of Morgan State University’s Patuxent Environmental and Aquatic Research Laboratory and economist by training, provided an economic perspective of Calvert’s natural landscapes by ascribing numerical values to several of the county’s ecosystem services.

For instance, Knoche said the local favorite blue crab rakes in “over $50 million in economic impacts.” Because of preserved land and healthy waterways, Calvert continues to offer invaluable ecosystem services to the region. However, potential development remains a threat to these services, and the forum’s speakers all verbalized the critical role of land preservation to counteract this threat.

Following a lineup of speakers who articulated the necessity of land preservation, Greg Bowen concluded with a presentation on how this land preservation happens. According to Bowen, many landowners sell their land for “highest and best use” to developers, assuming development generates the most profit. Bowen disagrees. In fact, this presumption has been disproven on several occasions in Calvert wherein the highest bidders were land trusts. These land trusts have been able to make back all of their money, taking on the role of “critical lands buyers”, by subsequently selling both the property and its development rights. Ultimately, Bowen hopes to shatter the notion that selling to developers is the most economical option for landowners. Land preservation is not only a lucrative alternative course of action for landowners, but it is also highly beneficial to the quality and sustainability of the environment as well as the innumerable services we gain from it.

The night closed with short introductions by each of the candidates present, including Mike Hart, Steve Jones, Catherine Grasso, Chelsea Monague, Myra Gowans, Todd Ireland, Tricia Powell, Buddy Hance, Christopher Gadway, and Evan Turzanski. Attendees were given the opportunity to speak with the candidates and further discuss their hopes for the future of Calvert in preparation for the primary elections on July 19, 2022.

Sustainable Calvert Network Member Organizations

ACLT Receives $20K Grant for Parkers Creek Heritage Trail

July 26, 2019 By Community Relations Manager

Woodrow Wallace Family – Photo by: Carl Fleischhauer

The American Chestnut Land Trust (ACLT) is pleased to announce that it is the recipient of a $20,000 grant from the Maryland Heritage Area Authority (MHAA) for research to be conducted as the initial phase of the “Parkers Creek Heritage Trail”. According to the grant application:

“For more than 10,000 years, people have hunted, fished, worked and made their homes around what would come to be known as Parkers Creek in Calvert County. Just as their lives and cultures shaped our local heritage, the ruggedness of the terrain and the characteristics of the waterways shaped their lives. The environment and its people leave a mark on each other and are inextricably intertwined.

The American Chestnut Land Trust seeks to fully explore that relationship within 5 significant eras of human habitation. The results will, in future phases, be shared through comprehensive interpretation for the public along ACLT’s current 22 miles of trails and heritage sites and 2 new trails slated for creation in 2019 and 2020.

Phase 1 of this long term project will result in the following: conclusion of primary research for each era and production of supporting online materials. At the conclusion of Phase 1, ACLT will hold a community event presenting the results of the research. Future phases will included development and installation of an interpretation plan and may include, but not be limited to, signage, framework edge display of excavated buildings, and sculptures/artwork representing buildings and historic life in the watershed, enhancing the visitors experience and strengthening their connection to the land.”

In its award of the grant, MHAA points out that “heritage areas foster broad public-private partnerships to preserve and enhance the best of Maryland’s historic sites and towns, unspoiled natural landscapes, and enduring traditions. These tangible links to both place and past help residents recognize their communities have a special piece of the American story to treasure and share with others and, in doing so, contribute to the economy of Maryland’s communities by preserving and enhancing places that attract heritage tourists. Every dollar of MHAA state grant funding has a return on investment of $4.45, generates $19.8 million in state and local taxes, and creates 3,146 jobs annually.”

Visit www.acltweb.org for more information about ACLT.

ACLT to be Featured on MPT’s “Outdoors Maryland”

August 11, 2017 By Community Relations Manager

On July 26th and 27th, a film crew from the MPT show “Outdoors Maryland” visited to take footage for an upcoming segment about ACLT and the partnerships that protected the Parkers Creek Watershed. The crew spent time on Double Oak Farm, at the Raft, at a Water Quality Monitoring site, walking the beach at Warriors Rest, and on a paddle on Parkers Creek. We expect the segment to be released in early 2018. We’ll keep you posted!

We’d like to send a special thanks to all the volunteers who participated and gave interviews! You all did a great job!

ACLT Opens a New Hiking Trail

April 27, 2017 By ellen

Running from the end of the Parkers Creek Road trail on the North Side, across the creek, then winding a challenging 2 miles to Cemetery Lane on the South Side, ACLT’s new “North-South Trail” is a remarkable and fun addition to our trail system! See our complete trails map.

We’ve worked hard and are so excited to launch this new experience at the Parkers Creek Preserve! The trail has two features that make it particularly interesting:

–The Raft! ACLT volunteers and staff have spent months designing and building a safe and fun way to cross Parkers Creek. Safely climb aboard the raft and pull yourself and a few friends from one side to the other!

–It’s our toughest trail yet! We’re listing it as difficult to challenging.

Find the new “North-South Trail” on the map of ACLT’s 22 miles of self-guided hiking trails. You can view and download the trail map as a PDF file. The map of ACLT’s trails is also available at ACLT’s trailhead locations. Read more about exploring ACLTs land under the “Land and Maps” menu tab.

GET TO THE RAFT: The easiest way to get to the raft is to take Old Parkers Creek Rd Trail from North Side Trailhead. Check out the map with details here

Double Oak Farm in the News

April 24, 2017 By ellen

Autumn Phillips-Lewis, ACLT’s Land Manager, published an article about Double Oak Farm in the Maryland Environmental Trust (MET) newsletter. Read this article about ACLT’s ‘Agriculture to Support the Community’ program online on page three of the Spring/Summer 2017 issue in MET’s newsletter archive.
To learn more about the farm, see the post “ACLT Plans to Farm for Food Banks“. Double Oak Farm is located at ACLT’s North Side Trail Head. Visit the farm during the 2nd Sunday Farmer’s Market during the summer months. Check dates and times on the Calendar of Events.