Oddities in Conservation

On a recent day of being manly and clearing paths and wandering around the woods sweaty and exhausted, I had a chance to have a very interesting conversation with Mr. Doug Bruce, the Stewardship Manager at the Council. Doug told me about a parcel of land the Resource Council recently purchased the conservation restrictions on in South County. It is a lovely farm land with lots of potential, Doug only spoke of one minor downside; he is now in charge of the upkeep of the two hundred year old farm house on the property, which still has a tenant in it. The provision of the CR Doug explained, is that the Council gets the land, but the elderly lady living there can remain. This is fine and all but Doug has now become a slum lord of sorts, trying to keep up on the repairs of the failing house.
Another oddity about my time with Doug is that we rarely seem to be productive. Whether it’s a minor detail like a chain saw malfunction, or an inability to find a surveyor’s pin (locating where the boundary we would be trying to paint actually is) Doug and I have yet to have what he considered a really productive day. Doug often dismisses this as part of the territory of his job, explaining that when you’re paid to wander in the woods and look for small pieces of rebar on the forest floor, your success rate wont be that high. While these usual interferences have come to be expected by me when I set out with Doug, I couldn’t help but be amused by his most recently tale of woe as to why we could not paint boundaries. It seems the neighbor of the land that the Council holds the conservation restriction on, had accused the Council of moving the surveyor pins two feet onto his property. This seems rather ludicrous for multiple reasons to me. To start, it would be highly illegal for the Council to move pins set by a surveyor. Next, what would two extra feet of property gain the Council when they own a good chunk of Berkshire County already.
While all of the aforementioned events led to a lack of great productivity by the Council, Doug did have some great news, a mountain biking group out of South County had recently agreed to donate the time and energy into clearing new trails for the Council. This is a great thing for the Council, as it saves time and money for them, two commodities that are very valuable in this tight fiscal time for the small organization. Donations of work aside, Doug pointed out that by getting more people involved in the Council, they are going to getting more people to visit their lands as well (the group should spread awareness of the trails etc.). Just like the National Park system in the early 20th century, the Resource Council strives to draw visitors to their land and fund themselves, while trying to maintain a healthy ecological place that visitors and wildlife can enjoy.