2008 in Review: New Acquisitions Protect Working Farmland and Preserve Wildlife Habitats

Since launching Saving the Land That Matters Most, we've completed 17 acquisitions that have safeguarded more than 1,703 acres throughout the Hudson Valley.

The BBTT Farm in Town of Stuyvesant (Columbia) supports a 300-cow dairy that has been in the same family for generations.Robert Rodriguez, Jr.

We really ramped up our acquisition program in the 2008 fiscal year, with 27 percent more transactions and 34 percent more acres preserved than in the previous year.

Our newly protected lands include:

• Over 900 acres of working farmland on seven farms in Dutchess and Columbia counties, safeguarding the economies and landscapes of rural communities while enabling farmers to keep growing healthy food profitably.
• 116 ecologically important acres in the towns of Greenport and Stockport, Columbia County, preserving the last link in a 2.5-mile stretch of Hudson River shoreline located within the Columbia-Greene North Scenic Area of Statewide Significance.
• 120 acres on two parcels in Hyde Park that offer potential river access, buffer the wooded Hyde Park Trail linking town historic sites and safeguard views from Scenic Hudson parks across the river in Ulster County.
• Nearly 150 acres on Black Creek in the towns of Lloyd and Esopus, Ulster County, preserving critical wildlife habitat along a popular kayaking and trout-fishing stream.

Protected lands in the Black Creek corridor are safeguarding critical wildlife habitat.Robert Rodriguez, Jr.