*December Highlight*

Vermont Coverts Website

Vermont Coverts: Woodlands for Wildlife
Fact Sheet

Vermont Coverts: Woodlands for Wildlife, Inc. (Vermont Coverts) was established to demonstrate that well-planned forest management can enhance wildlife habitat and provide timber benefits as well.  The two can go hand in hand.   The goal of Vermont Coverts is to help woodland owners become aware that sound forest management includes much more than timber, pulp, and firewood production.

Initiated by the University of Vermont Extension Forester and originally funded by the Ruffed Grouse Society, Vermont Coverts has grown over the past seventeen years as an organization of forestland owners and others committed to sound forest management that enhances and protects wildlife habitat. Since 1985, Coverts management practices may have benefited over 160,000 acres of Vermont forests.

Vermont Coverts programs include:

Vermont Coverts Cooperator Training Program .  An intensive three-day seminar on forest and wildlife management is held every spring and fall for landowners who, in exchange, agree to share information on forest management with others in their community for at least one year.  Community sharing by graduates (called Cooperators) may involve demonstrating forest management activities on the their land, speaking to community organizations, writing short articles for newspapers, organizing workshops for woodland owners, or enhancing local public wildlife policy. Cooperators, now numbering over 300, have been instrumental in creating an information network that has helped other landowners make more informed decisions about managing their land.

Forest Stewardship Workshop Series . The Forest Stewardship Workshops are one-day programs focused on a specific forest and/or wildlife management topic.  Balanced with indoor and outdoor sessions, these workshops have included topics such as wildlife management options, mapping, vernal pool management, estate planning, cross boundary management, and natural communities identification.

From Browse to Scat . This quarterly newsletter provides readers with up-to-date information about Coverts Cooperators and programs of interested to woodland owners offered around the state by various organizations.  Information about pending legislation and topics of current interest that may affect the welfare of Vermont ’s wildlife and forests is often included.

Neighborhood Wildlife Habitat Program .  In the fall of 1997, Vermont Coverts initiated pilot projects distributed throughout Vermont .  The common goal was to involve private woodland owners in neighborhood cooperation and thus to conserve and enhance a diversified landscape larger than their own. This program continues to expand as various Coverts Cooperators implement cross boundary management within their neighborhoods.  Assistance with cross boundary management techniques is available through the Vermont Covert office.

For further information about Vermont Coverts, please contact:

Farley Anne Brown, Executive Director
P.O. Box 83
Craftsbury Common, VT  05827
(802) - 586-2250 or email: farley@vtcoverts.org

COVERT, an English word dating to the 14th century, refers to a dense thicket that provides shelter for wildlife.

** If you have ideas for future highlights please send an email to acorn@forwild.umass.edu **