What do Coverts Cooperators Do?
Coverts Cooperators are community leaders who benefit from over 40 hours of intensive training in forestry, wildlife management, land conservation, and effective outreach during the annual Coverts Training Workshop. Participants are also given a significant amount of take home resources. In return, Cooperators agree to return to their communities and serve as advocates for forests and wildlife conservation in a way that fits the Cooperator's time, talents, and resources. We ask that Coverts volunteers match the 40 hours of formal training by contributing at least 40 hours towards a project or projects of their choosing.
Since 1995, over 500 people have participated in the Coverts workshop. Of those, over 400 are still active with the program. Their approaches to promoting forest and wildlife conservation have been as varied as the people and towns they come from. The activities of these volunteers are limited only by their own creativity. Below is a list of some of the projects and activities that past Cooperators have done to meet their Coverts commitment.
- Worked with neighbors in town to permanently protect their land
- Created early-successional habitat on their own land with the help of Financial Assistance Programs
- Connected landowners in town making decisions about their land with local professionals that can provide assistance
- Hosted a Coverts Gathering (walk) on their property
- Become a land steward for the Society for the Protection of NH Forests
- Created early-successional habitat on land trust land
- Trained as a Speaking for Wildlife volunteer, delivering wildlife talks in their community
- Assisted the Taking Action for Wildlife team to help conduct a Natural Resources Inventory in their town
- Wrote a series of article on wildlife and land conservation for their local paper
- Helped a neighbor make an informed decision about selling their timber
- Lent out their take home resources to community memebers through the town library
- Developed and implemented a fund-raising campaign for their town open space committee
- Joined their local land trust and promoted land conservation and forest management
- Facilitated the creation of a town agricultural commission, with forestry defined as one of its responsibilities
- Developed a wildlife management plan for town land
- Created early successional habitat on town land
- Worked with a consulting forester to manage town forest land
- Invited neighbors when they conducted a timber sale on thier property
- Organized a presentation in town about wildlife habitat management
- Permanently conserved their own land
- Encouraged friends to join conservation organizations and municipal boards
- Helped their town pass an ordinance so that 100% of the Current Use Change Tax goes to conservation
- Worked with the open space committee to prioritize parcels of conservation priority
- Organized invasive plant control on town forest and conservation land
- Joined their town's conservation commission
