Vermont Environmental Consortium

And

BRATTLEBORO REFORMER

October 30, 2007
A Legacy of Conservation at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller
by
Scott Sawyer

As visitors stroll down Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park’s old carriage roads, picnic at the Pogue, and bask in the glory of autumn’s leaves, they enter a time machine of sorts. Vermont’s past and future are written into this landscape.

This land has history: It was here in Woodstock that American forestry was born. This place is also highly relevant today because it offers an excellent demonstration of sustainable land management in an era of limited resources.

Connecting this legacy of land stewardship and a future of innovative solutions to environment problems, such as green building and forest certification, is a long line of Vermont stewards. Park Superintendent Rolf Diamant says that the story of these 550 acres is “about people taking care of places.”

It begins about 200 years ago, as a young George Perkins Marsh (1801-1882) wandered around the largely denuded slopes of Mount Tom, the vegetation of which was being munched up by Vermont’s booming sheep industry. Later in life, as President Lincoln’s Ambassador to Italy, Marsh noted that the destruction of New England forests was starting to resemble the highly degraded Mediterranean-region landscapes. Marsh’s book, Man and Nature (1864), was one of the first texts to describe the devastating effects of human actions, and it precipitated the modern conservation movement.

Frederick Billings (1823-1890) was also a Woodstock resident. As a young lawyer, he went to California during the Gold Rush, where he made his fortune and witnessed drastic changes in the landscape. He returned to Vermont in 1864 and purchased Marsh’s estate, where, influenced by reading Man and Nature, he worked to turn the property from fairly unproductive pasture land to a model of progressive farming and forestry. He also laid out 12 miles of carriage roads for pleasure drives, to facilitate planting and harvesting, and to invite people to learn about better forest practices.

After Billings’ death, his family carried on the tradition. His granddaughter, Mary French, married Laurance Rockefeller (1910-2004), who won the Congressional Gold Medal in 1991 for his many contributions to conservation. Mary and Laurance were both involved in the Woodstock community and the management of the estate, keeping the land open to the public, extending the trail system, and continuing the tradition of forestry work.

In 1992, they donated their estate to the National Park Service, and it was officially opened as the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in 1998. With forests that have been continuously managed from 1873 until the present, it’s the oldest continuously managed forest land in the United States.

The legacy of stewardship and innovation is continued today under the leadership of Superintendent Diamant and his staff. Besides being Vermont’s only National Park, Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller was the first National Park location to have its land independently certified as meeting stringent Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) management standards. And its commitment to reducing environmental impact has changed with the times. Working with Smith Alvarez Sienkiewycz Architects, the Park is now constructing its first green building, certified by the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard. All of the wood used in this new meeting/educational space was harvested from the Park.

According to Park Resource Manager Christina Marts, LEED standards provide “an opportunity for public lands to serve as places of demonstration for ways in which we can all live more sustainably. It’s one way of thinking about how we can design our buildings in a way that reduces energy needs, uses local products, and creates spaces that are beautiful and inspiring.”

“Both LEED and FSC certification offer transparency in management,” explains Marts. “We’re living in a complicated world, where the places we live in and the products we’re using are no longer directly associated to landscapes that we know are being well managed. Certification provides some credibility and connection with the actions that we’re taking, the decisions we’re making, and the ultimate connection with where these products are coming from.”

“What we’re really trying to do,” Superintendent Diamant says, “is to encourage a conversation about the nature of certification in the environmental movement. It hits home whether you’re talking about the Vermont Fresh Network, fair trade coffee, or any product where the source is important to you as a consumer.”

In 1864, Marsh wrote that public attention had only “half awakened to the necessity of restoring the disturbed harmonies of nature.” The snooze button has been hit a number of times in the intervening years, as environmental problems have intensified. As the crew of Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park do their part to establish connections between the health of the land and the health of people, it’s up to the rest of us to wake up and practice good stewardship. Visiting the Park is a great way to start.

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Visit the Park on the web at: www.nps.gov/mabi. This week’s guest contributor, Scott Sawyer, is research, evaluation, and communications coordinator at Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund.

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