The Westport Land Conservation Trust (WLCT) stewardship program cares for almost 1,500 acres of land that the trust owns in Westport. In addition, the program is responsible for annually monitoring approximately 1,200 acres of privately protected land throughout Town.
Summary
In the last decade, WLCT has expanded its public offerings with over 15 miles of trails in Town. We believe this has provided a valuable service for Town residents and has provided the opportunity for so many to more intimately connect with nature. We know it is our responsibility to manage these places with care for both habitat and visitor experience. Therefore, we decided to undertake an internal analysis of our property care needs. The goal of analyzing trail and property maintenance has been to collect data on how WLCT manages land. The four goals of this analysis focused on:
A. Measure how much time is needed to care for WLCT’s public hiking areas each year
B. Determine how that time is divided among different types of maintenance work
C. Determine which types of maintenance work are WLCT’s highest priorities
D. Brainstorm strategies to become more efficient at maintaining WLCT hiking areas
Key Findings
-
- Volunteers, staff and interns spend MORE THAN 2000 hours maintaining WLCT’s public properties each year.
-
- Another 1,500 plus hours of work go into property monitoring and special projects work, etc.
-
- WLCT’s Tuesday Trail Team spends MORE THAN 450 hours helping maintain public hiking areas annually.
-
- A little over 1,000 hours of trail work per year is contributed by staff including WLCT’s BayCoast Bank summer interns who spend MORE THAN 500 hours working on trails throughout Town.
Volunteer
Special places don’t stay special on their own. Our dedicated volunteers make sure every one of our destination properties is ready for your next adventure.