Pemi-Baker Land Trust

The Pemi-Baker Land Trust (PBLT), a member of the Land Trust Alliance, is a regional land trust serving the towns of the Baker River and upper Pemigewasset River Valleys. This includes all or parts of: Benton, Campton, Dorchester, Ellsworth, Groton, Holderness, Lincoln, Orford, Piermont, Plymouth, Rumney, Thornton, Warren, Wentworth, and Woodstock, a region defined more by watershed than political boundaries. The Pemi-Baker Land Trust is a "trade name" registered with the New Hampshire Secretary of State by Rumney Ecological Systems for use in its land trust activities.

We welcome inquiries and proposals by landowners who wish to place their land under some type of conservation protection. We are able to accept both conservation easements and direct donations of land. If you have land you are interested in protecting please contact the PBLT President (see contacts in sidebar at left).

In considering properties for conservation protection, the Pemi-Baker Land Trust seeks those which exhibit one or more of the following characteristics:

Water Quality and Quantity :

• Land overlying aquifers and aquifer recharge areas, especially if identified as prime
• Frontage on surface waters (rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds),
• Wetlands, flood plains, riparian zones, and other lands critical to water quality or recharge within the watershed

Forest and Agricultural Resources:

• Substantial acreage of productive forest and/or agricultural land,
• Historic forest and agricultural land,
• Unique forest species or communities,
• Land that will reduce the fragmentation of these forest and/or agricultural lands,
• Land that will preserve or promote forest or agricultural types or diversity

Wildlife Habitat and Plant Communities:

• Land containing ecologically significant or rare natural communities,
• Land that contributes to large tracts of undeveloped habitat and corridors for wildlife migration,
• Land that increases the diversity of contiguous natural communities
• Land that offers significant habitat for endangered, threatened or species of conservation concern

Community Value:

• Land with existing or potential trail corridors,
• Land that provides or contains scenic value,
• Land which preserves the region’s rural and historical heritage,
• Land which provides public access for low impact recreational opportunities

Among lands with significant conservation values, RES will favor properties that:

• Abut, enlarge, or provide linkages to previously protected land,
• Have community support through Master Plans, referenda, or other public expressions,
• Are subject to an immediate threat of change of use,
• Are available under unique circumstances that are not likely to occur again,
• Are important to the local community,
• Would be a stimulus for future protection projects

The following may disqualify a land protection project from consideration by RES:

• Hazardous waste contamination or potential contamination
• Title problems, including lack of mortgage subordination
• Distance, location, or other site characteristics that prevent adequate monitoring
• Significant violations of federal, state, or local regulations or accepted best management practices
• Potential for another, more appropriate organization to provide protection
• A Landowner insists on provisions that RES believes would seriously diminish the property’s conservation values or would make monitoring extremely difficult
• Conflict of interest
• Anticipated costs in time or money that do not have matching resources in the organization now or in the expected future

The Pemi-Baker Land Trust will evaluate each project on its own merits carefully examining each property, the values which would be conserved, and the public benefit of protecting the property.

We currently protect four properties, three through direct ownership and one by conservation easement. We own the 45 acre Quincy Bog, the 92-acre Quincy Pastures Forest on East Rumney Road, and the 5-acre Baker Forest on the Quincy Road in Rumney. We hold a conservation easement on a 136-acre parcel in Dorchester, NH and another on 130 acres in Rumney. We are currently working with two landowners who have asked us to consider conservation easements on their property and another who intends to donate land for permanent protection. If you have property in the upper Pemigewasset or Baker River valleys that you would like protected from development by a conservation easement or other means, please contact us (contact information is the sidebar to the left). We would be pleased to discuss possibilities with you.