Amrita Acharya
Welcome to climate change at home, a podcast series produced by the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Greenfield Recorder, and Athol Daily News. I am your host, Amrita Acharya. And on this podcast we will look at the impacts of climate change and those active in the fight against it in the Pioneer Valley. Climate change at home is sponsored by Whalen Insurance, providing protection to Pioneer Valley families and businesses since 1961. Today, I'm speaking with Emma Ellsworth, the executive director of Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust in Athol, Massachusetts. Mount grace is a nonprofit that focuses on the conservation of woodland and agricultural land in Western and North Quabbin regions. Emma and her team at Mount Grace are committed to helping protect people's land from being priced out, collaborating with local indigenous tribes to integrate indigenous knowledge of land stewardship into their practice, and reducing their carbon footprint through green forest management. We chatted earlier this month to discuss mount Grace's initiatives and how making conservation a more collaborative process with the local community can have a greater impact on our climate.

Emma Ellsworth
My name is Emma Ellsworth and I am the Executive Director of Mount Graceland Conservation Trust. Our headquarters are in Athol, Massachusetts, but we cover 23 Town region across the north Quabbin and I'm actually a Nuland, executive director there, I started three years ago, the bulk of my career was in union negotiations and organizing. And so it was sort of a fluke that I ended up at Mount grace.

Amrita Acharya
And how did that happen? If you don't mind? My asking?

Emma Ellsworth
Sure. It's a funny story. Because I resigned from the work at the Union. It was just a lot of travel and stress. And with no plan, I went to a yoga class. Because that's when does it feel a lot of stress in their life? And I ran into Sarah wells, who's the Conservation Director at Mount grace and a longtime friend of ours. And I was walking out of the yoga class with her and I happened to say, Sarah, smell Grace hiring. And she said, Actually, and the Executive Director Lee Youngblood who was there for 27 years, was planning on transitioning on and so I was able to overlap with her for a year. And now I am where I am. So it was pretty magical.

Amrita Acharya
That's amazing.

Emma Ellsworth
Yeah.

Amrita Acharya
What are what an interesting transition. And what made you want to work at Mountain grace? And what are some of the things that mount grace does?

Emma Ellsworth
Sure. Well, I've always been an avid outdoors woman, I raised canoes. I'm a late onset Hunter. So spending time in the woods and outdoors is really important to me. And so, and my father was actually on the board of Mount Grace for eight years. So I'd always been in our family and around. And so Mount Grace. I mean, people don't, I certainly didn't really understand what conservation was until I really dove in and started working there. So what we do is we work with landowners, sometimes we are actually acquiring the land so that we own it ourselves, either by donation, or we purchase it, or what we do is acquire a conservation easement. So the private landowner continues to own the land, but they've sold the capacity to develop the land, so it'll be protected as open space in perpetuity. And so we focus on forest land and farmland. And it's particularly important in the North Quabbin region, because there are a lot of people, it's considered an area that's economically disadvantaged. So there are a lot of people that are very land rich, and cash poor, where their land is their primary asset. So being able to get some money, some, you know, resources from the land without having to see it turned into cookie cutter houses or, you know, especially when people have loved their land for years and years and years. That's really important. And Mount Grace has protected over 37,000 acres.

Amrita Acharya
Wow.

Emma Ellsworth
Yeah, it's pretty remarkable.

Amrita Acharya
That is incredible. What do you have sort of a baseline for what that 37,000 acres means?

Emma Ellsworth
Well, with focus, we have to do a lot of prioritization, because unfortunately, we don't have the capacity to protect all the land that there is. So we focus on connectivity is really important. So thinking about conservation land that's adjacent to other conservation land, because that allows for species migrate and especially in the face of climate change, and species migration. That might be, you know, the cute little fuzzy animals that, you know, we love and look at, it could be birds, but it also can be tree species, plant species. So the other thing we look for is Resilient Landscapes.

Amrita Acharya
Okay

Emma Ellsworth
Landscapes that are identified as having more capacity to withstand the impact of climate change. So that can be things like water values and soil values. So there's a lot that goes into the work that we're doing.

Amrita Acharya
Yeah. So you mentioned that the population surrounding North Corbin is economically disadvantaged. What are the ways that mount grace, you've spoken a bit about it, but actually is able to help those people. You mentioned having easements on their land, but other other initiatives in order to protect that land?

Emma Ellsworth
Sure, I'll actually share a story that's kind of close to my heart.

Amrita Acharya
Sure.

Emma Ellsworth
My father in law who recently passed away, Bill Ellsworth had a sawmill in Peters Hand, Massachusetts, and he had log lots that he pulled the wood off to feed the sawmill in addition to buying land wood in from outside. And when he was getting ready to retire, you know, he didn't have savings, he had land. And so Mount Grace was able to work with my father in law Bill, to help him sell the land, ultimately, the state was the buyer. So now all of that land that he had loved and nurtured and cared for for decades, is protected. And, you know, we continue to go hiking there and walk there. All the time. Is there this last weekend? Yeah, it's fabulous. And then my father in law was able to retire with dignity, which he was able to get that revenue in. And it's, it's pretty magical.

Amrita Acharya
And a lot of great story. Yeah, that's amazing. Um, that just gets me to thinking more about what you and I were discussing about the relationship between conservation and land stewardship. Can you speak a bit about what sort of that relationship is?

Emma Ellsworth
Sure. So Mount Grace was founded by forester. So it's always had a relationship with a working landscape, whether that's our local agriculture, or local timber industry.
But really, as landowners, we have a relationship with the land. And for some people that can be deciding, you know what, it's beautiful, and I'm not going to touch it, I just want to walk and appreciate it. And for other people, there might be more active management techniques, there might be invasives that need controlling, there might be trees that are for stands that aren't in good health. At different times in our history, especially in this region, a lot of our land was clear cut in the 1830s and 40s, or start of the wool industry. So the forest that we have, are pretty much all the same age. And they're not necessarily the most healthy.
We've curtailed the influence of Beaver, we've curtailed the influence of natural forest fire. indigenous Americans are no longer doing prescribed burning and doing their management of the forests. So we can have stands that are not in very good shape, and so need some real restoration to maintain our biodiversity, our wildlife habitat, and even our capacity to sequester and shore carbon. Because if trees are dying, or they're too tight together, they're not growing as fast as they could.

Amrita Acharya
Right. You mentioned indigenous practices. I'm curious to know how you've been able to integrate indigenous knowledge into conservation.

Emma Ellsworth
Yeah, it's one of the most exciting aspects of the work that we're doing right now. And for me, really personally inspiring. We're working with Hilltown Land Trust, in a partnership with Nipmuc. Cultural Inc., and then particularly the cultural store and who's Andre Strongheart Gaines, Jr. and he is it. We don't have a finished product at this point. But Andre is doing a lot of work to look at both hilltown properties and Mount Grace properties, look at our forest management plans, and see where indigenous storage can be incorporated. Based on you know, 10,000 years have a sustainable relationship with the land. Yeah, so I'm really excited where this is gonna go. Yeah. And one of the particular pieces of the project is in compensating Andre for his knowledge and expertise, where we've also made the decision to invest in mentorship.
So when he's doing this work, he's also bringing along other members of the tribe, so that they're learning along with him. So that we're creating the next generation of cultural stewards.

Amrita Acharya
That's amazing. I'm speaking more specifically about indigenous knowledge. what are maybe some of the concepts that you're able to share about indigenous knowledge on climate change and being able to protect what we have?

Emma Ellsworth
Yeah, one example that we've been digging into is around cedar swamps, and the health of cedar trees. So if cedar like cedars are one of the tree species in our region that almost disappeared. And a lot of that is because other species can easily dominate over them like white pines that grow faster. And if cedar doesn't get a little bit of light, it's not going to do much. But that seed bank is hanging out in the soil. So it doesn't take a whole lot of intervention to open up the tree canopy a little bit and get some light to the cedars. And then you get cedar swamp back. So that's something that we've started to explore.

Amrita Acharya
Oh, that is so interesting. Yeah. And so I'd love to speak a little bit more on that climate piece, especially in relationship to forest management. What are some of the practices that you employ for managing forest land?

Emma Ellsworth
Sure. So the critical piece is balancing all the different things that we need from the forest. Right. So and again, it's that relationship. So we look to forest for heating our homes for building our homes. We look to forest for recreation, we look to forest because they support wildlife and wildlife habitat. And then most recently, there's a lot of conversation about carbon sequestration and storage. And so it's really a balancing act of all of those goals.

Amrita Acharya
Yeah. And just to before you continue, do you mind just giving some definitions for sequestration and storage?

Emma Ellsworth
Sure. And I am not a scientist, I do my best as a lay person, but sequestration, that's what happens with photosynthesis, that's when the carbon comes into the tree. And then storage is all that carbon that's hanging out in the trunk and the limbs and roots and in the soil around the tree. That's where it's hanging.

Amrita Acharya
And what is that general impact of increased sequestration? Like? What does that mean for us?

Emma Ellsworth
So well, one of the leading causes of climate change is that we have too much carbon in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, right. And it's because we're driving too many cars. And we're building our houses too big and all you know, how we're powering the world. And so the forests play a really critical role, and sucking that carbon out of the air in the atmosphere and storing them in. So I think the most critical thing is that we there's a whole profession called foresters, and they're the folks that go into the woods and sort of help a landowner balance all those myriad of goals that they have for their forest land. And so usually they come up with plans. And in Massachusetts, there's a lot of oversight there. There's a lot of technical expertise that goes into it. We have a really good system in Massachusetts. And so for me, it's a lot about giving those foresters all the tools in their toolbox. So for example, I was walking with our forester on a piece of land in Royalston, and it's only 40 acres. But our forester, Mike Morey, he's considering what's happening on the adjacent land, right. So if we think about wildlife habitat, what can we do on our little 40 acres that complements what's happening nearby, there are some really great stands of Spruce that are pretty unusual and nice. So let's kind of leave those alone, maybe do a few little things to pull out some white pine to give this spruce a little bit more light. And then there's some other stands that aren't in good shape. They're pretty sick, and the trees are dying. So we might reduce those and basically take them out and open up some real big patches, get some sunlight on the ground, get some young forest habitat, which is we have very little of in Massachusetts. So I think that there's a lot of fear about climate change right now. And people are concerned about cutting trees. And they're concerned, you know that there's so much urgency to mitigate climate change, and I certainly feel that but I feel like forestry is actually one of our strongest tools. We are currently sitting at a wood coffee table. You know that storing carbon right this table right now. And it's storing carbon with a much less carbon footprint than if this were a steel coffee table, or a concrete coffee table. So it's, it's really wood is a sustainable rate.

Amrita Acharya
That's really interesting. You say that because I feel like what you mentioned about feeling like forestry is not good for climate change is perhaps like a piece of misinformation. Do you feel that within conservation, there are other pieces of incorrect knowledge in relationship to climate change or incorrect like practices in relationship to climate change?

Emma Ellsworth
I would say that the other piece is that people often feel like we have to protect nature from people. And actually, Andre Songheart Gaines, Jr. said this really beautifully. To me. It's like no, what we have to do is restore that relationship. And humans and people have lived together sustainably for 10s of 1000s of years. And the system is a wee bit screwed up right now. So we have to fix that connection, and not protect the land from people but protect our connection to it.

Amrita Acharya
If you're interested in learning more or getting in contact with Emma, you can visit mountgrace.org, where you'll find more information about the organization's projects and ways to get involved. On this season of climate change at home. I am speaking to individuals from the Center for eco technology and Community Action Pioneer Valley among many others. Lastly, I'd like to thank our sponsor Whalen Insurance, a local business operated exclusively by solar power. Whalen insurance has seven evey charging stations at its King Street office in Northampton, free for public use. Until next time, I am Amrita Acharya and I thank you so much for tuning in.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai