The Quiet Corner Initiative at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

The Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies has embarked on an ambitious effort to conserve the forested landscape of northeastern Connecticut, the Quiet Corner, by engaging private landowners in stewardship and conservation actions. By joining a Woodland Partnership, these landowners become part of a long-term research and management project aimed at maintaining ecosystem health and connectivity and contributing to the rural community viability through ecosystem services markets, renewable energy, and sustainable agriculture. Seven landowners, along a critical water supply stream, signed up for conservation option plans and land management plans the first year. The goal is to increase this to 40 landowners over the next three years, while creating an adaptive management approach to studying social and biophysical changes using a multi-faceted, focused effort in this one region.