Imagine a place where people are drawn not only to its beauty but its outdoor tourism — hiking, camping, fishing, snowmobiling and much more — through an area rich in natural resources.
That’s what 21 towns, including 11 in Franklin County, are doing as they consider the opportunity they have to increase tourism and preserve their woodlands at the same time.
Franklin Regional Council of Governments continues to work with the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission and Franklin Land Trust on the Mohawk Trail Woodlands Partnership, a forest-based economic development and conservation project in its fourth year of development. The team has also been working with the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.
FRCOG Director of Planning and Development Peggy Sloan said the state has already created a special designation through legislation for the 21-town region along the Mohawk Trail, establishing the partnership as part of the state Environmental Bond Bill. Now, each of the 21 towns must opt in if they want to participate. She said that can be done either by a selectboard or town meeting vote.
Sloan said the project is still in the early stages, so there is no state or federal money associated with it at this point, but eventually, there will be grants to help member towns with projects such as improving trails, marketing recreational businesses, providing revolving loans for recreational businesses, purchasing emergency response equipment when tourism increases, town-owned forest management plans, recreational facility signage and more.
She said there will also be money available for conservation, including conservation restrictions pursued by private land owners or forest land owners.
So far, Conway, Shelburne and Heath have voted to opt in. That means at least eight more of the 21 towns, either in Franklin County or Berkshire County, must do the same. According to the legislation, there need to be 11 before the Mohawk Trail Woodlands Partnership board can be established and funding can be sought, Sloan said.
The 11 in Franklin County are Ashfield, Buckland, Charlemont, Colrain, Conway, Hawley, Heath, Leyden, Monroe, Rowe and Shelburne. In Berkshire County they are Adams, Cheshire, Clarksburg, Florida, New Ashford, North Adams, Peru, Savoy, Williamstown and Windsor.
“Once we have 11 towns, the legislation will allow us to pursue state and federal funding and create a grant program,” Sloan said, and that could possibly take up to two more years.
Sloan said woodlands throughout that area of the two counties provide many benefits, including recreation. She said a significant number of people make their living off woodlands, whether running a recreational business, cutting and selling firewood off their woodlots, harvesting timber for furniture making or flooring, working as foresters or tapping sugar maples for syrup. She said forests provide critical ecological services, including water supply recharge and protection, wildlife habitat, water and air purification and carbon sequestration.
“This project has three goals,” Sloan said. “Those are to increase sustainable economic development related to forestry and natural resource-based tourism; support forest conservation on private lands and use of sustainable forestry practices; and to improve fiscal stability and sustainability of the municipalities involved.”
In the past four years, more than 60 community meetings have been held throughout the two counties to discuss and shape the project and get feedback, Sloan said.
If 11 communities opt in, a board will be formed and the partnership will begin to receive funding. Some of the early proposals for that funding have included design, construction and operation of the Mohawk Trail Forest Center, which would provide tourism services and technical assistance to private forest landowners and businesses to implement sustainable forestry practices, research projects to address climate change, invasive species and more, and protection of approximately 2,100 acres of forest through conservation restrictions. Nothing has been decided, though.
Sloan said there has also been talk about creating a forest viability program, establishing municipal cooperative agreements that would provide annual grants to participating towns to support town services or operations like, for instance, road maintenance, as well as all sorts of recreational development and promotion.
According to the Mohawk Trail Woodlands Partnership report, the northwestern corner of the state, which includes all 21 towns, is roughly 82 percent forested.
For more information about the project, updates or a copy of the legislation, visit: bit.ly/2uFLxiF