in the news
The Land Conservancy Opens New Public Trail at the Love Road Preserve in Grand Island
October 30, 2024: The Love Road Preserve will officially open on November 8, 2024. The preserve is a mature hardwood forest bordered on three sides by additional undeveloped land, and it contains wetlands and vernal pools that make it a desirable ecological site. Over the past several months, the Land Conservancy’s stewardship team removed the invasive common and glossy buckthorn and multiflora rose that impacted the forest. They also built just over a mile of dirt-packed trail for the community to enjoy, with some sections of bog bridging like visitors will find at the Margery Gallogly Nature Sanctuary, also on Grand Island. The new preserve boasts an oak forest with swamp white oaks, pin oaks, red oaks, and even large American elms.
Buffalo News Editorial: Western New Yorkers are helping others, preserving nature and doing their civic duty
The Land Conservancy to host author Ben Goldfarb at Trinity Episcopal Church on August 28th
July 31, 2024: The Western New York Land Conservancy will host author Ben Goldfarb to discuss his influential book Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of our Planet. His first book, Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, was a breakout sensation in 2019. Crossings, his second book, is a critically-acclaimed study of how roads have fragmented and transformed habitats around the globe. The book’s vital message reinforces the habitat restoration and permanent land protection work of the Land Conservancy here in WNY.
East Aurora Advertiser: Western New York Land Conservancy to Host Author Ben Goldfarb
Buffalo Rising: Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet
WXXI Rochester: "Connections": Journalist Ben Goldfarb on his book, Crossings, and How Roadways Affect the Environment
The Western New York Land Conservancy Seeks Interested Landowners Along the Lower Niagara and the Niagara Escarpment for Land Protection Program
May 8, 2024: Thanks to a grant from the Greenway Ecological Standing Committee (GESC), the Western New York Land Conservancy is seeking landowners who live along the Lower Niagara River and the Niagara Escarpment who wish to permanently protect their land under the Land Conservancy’s Lower Niagara and Niagara Escarpment Land Protection Program.
Niagara Frontier Publications: WNY Land Conservancy Seeks Interested Landowners
Lockport Union-Sun and Journal: The Land Conservancy looking for landowners
The Riverline to Conduct Impact Study, Seeks Community Input
March 6, 2024: The Riverline, a proposed 1.5-mile nature trail and greenway near downtown Buffalo, is entering the next phase of its development: a study to evaluate the social, economic, and environmental impacts the project will have on the community. The Riverline Study is a required step before any construction can begin. This month, The Riverline will hold three public meetings to make sure the community knows the process and timeline of the study, meets the local team, and continues to have a say in helping to shape this great public space.
Buffalo Rising: The Riverline to Conduct Impact Study
Buffalo News: Study to begin on proposed Riverline trail
Western New York Land Conservancy Announces Black Creek-Angelica Creek Land Protection Program
March 5, 2024: The Western New York Land Conservancy is pleased to announce a program to protect forests, fields, and farms in the towns of Allen, Angelica, Birdsall, Grove, and West Almond. Portions of these towns fall within the Black Creek/Angelica Creek watershed, which provides drinking water for residents in these towns and the Village of Angelica. Black and Angelica creeks also flow all the way to Lake Ontario and are part of the Great Lakes system.
Two Erie County Farms Awarded Major State Funding
January 23, 2024: Governor Kathy Hochul recently announced more than $5.5 million dollars in farmland protection grants to protect 2,100 acres of farmland across New York State, including 957 acres in Western New York. The Land Conservancy is pleased to work with the owners of Stefan Hay in North Collins and the Vacinek Farm in Sardinia to protect their family legacies as well as the productive agricultural lands on which we all rely. This announcement marks the beginning of the Land Conservancy’s work to permanently protect these two farms with a conservation easement—a legal agreement between the Land Conservancy and the landowners to keep it available for agriculture forever by limiting development.
Buffalo Business First: $1.6M in funding will help conservancy protect 957 acres of local land
Program for Landscape Maintenance Technicians to Offer Paid Training, Field Work, and Job Placement Opportunities
January 3, 2024: Buffalo Center for Arts & Technology (BCAT), The Riverline, and Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy are pleased to announce that pre-registration is now open for their 2024 Landscape Maintenance Technician training program. Funded initially with seed money from the First Niagara Foundation in 2020, the program has grown to become a pipeline for individuals to get training—and good paying jobs—in the field. The program includes both on-site and online training and is scheduled to conclude just as many landscape maintenance employers are seeking seasonal employees. In March, BCAT and The Riverline will host a job fair where participants will meet employers—and potentially secure jobs.
WKBW: 'It's really a path forward': Program creating skilled workers in Buffalo's landscaping industry
Partnership for the Public Good: Sustainable Futures podcast
Community Reaches Fundraising Goal, Western New York Land Conservancy Acquires the Floating Fen and Becker Preserve
January 3, 2024: The Western New York Land Conservancy and the Friends of Floating Fen are pleased to announce that the community has reached their fundraising goal to save the Floating Fen, and they officially purchased the property on December 29th. The Floating Fen is an incredibly diverse property that’s home to a unique wetland that includes a bog-like area, “the floating fen,” from which the new preserve derives its name. Every summer, the floating fen comes alive with a carpet of blue flag iris, carnivorous sundews, and a trove of rare plants. The surrounding forest also teems with porcupines, beavers, fishers, great flocks of migratory songbirds, and other wildlife.
Dunkirk Observer: 'Fen'-tastic news: Conservancy purchases diverse area land
Chautauqua Today: WNY Land Conservancy acquires Floating Fen
East Aurora Advertiser: Two additional parcels of land now preserved by Land Conservancy