Stewardship

The Stewardship Program was created in 1992 to manage GMC land and conservation easement holdings. Toward this end, the GMC established the Aldie Gannett Stewardship Endowment to fund the long-term obligation of owning land and easements. Along with land trusts across the country, GMC has found that acquiring land and easements to preserve the Long Trail is only the first step in forever protecting the Long Trail.

Many responsibilities have come with owning over 3,000 acres of land and holding conservation easements on over 20,000 acres of land. The Stewardship Program oversees monitoring and management of these lands; responds to easement violations and timber trespass; reviews development proposals; manages GIS database and mapping; pays property taxes; and works closely with state and federal land managers. The Stewardship Program reviews development proposals affecting the trail such as ski area expansion and wind energy and telecommunications projects.

The keystone of GMC Stewardship is the Volunteer Corridor Monitoring Program, in which dozens of volunteers adopt conserved lands and monitor these properties each year. Volunteers maintain boundaries and keep watch over the trail corridor. Volunteers have been instrumental in discovering ATV violations, timber trespass and illegal trail-cutting on GMC-conserved lands.

The GMC is committed to responsibly managing GMC conservation lands and easements by working with our neighbors and trail landowners to maintain a high-quality hiking experience across high mountain summits and working forest lands, while protecting the natural resources that make the Long Trail such a unique hiking experience.

The Green Mountain Club supports sustainable forestry practices and Vermont’s working landscape. The club sustainably harvests timber from its own property currently both as a source of income and fuel for its visitor center which uses wood gasification boilers for heat and hot water.