College Hill Wilderness Sanctuary Furthers Vermont’s Land Conservation Goals

A version of this press release first appeared in the Brattleboro Reformer on September 7, 2025.

JAMAICA, VT — Northeast Wilderness Trust has acquired nearly 600 acres for the College Hill Wilderness Sanctuary in Jamaica, which will be passively managed to allow the property’s forests to transition to old growth. The project supports the state’s progress towards its Act 59 conserved-land goals, as well as Vermont Conservation Design’s old-forest benchmarks.

“College Hill Wilderness Sanctuary is a hopeful example of land trusts and private landowners working together to advance statewide conservation priorities,” said Jon Leibowitz, President and CEO of Northeast Wilderness Trust. “Old forest is rare in Vermont, making this project an invaluable opportunity to boost in one transaction both wildlands and old-forest acreage as called for by Act 59 and the state’s Agency of Natural Resources in the Vermont Conservation Design [VCD] report.”

Vermont passed Act 59 in 2023, which requires that 30 percent of Vermont’s land be conserved by 2030 (“30×30”). The bill also stipulates that Act 59-related conservation decision-making “prioritiz[es] ecological reserve areas to protect highest priority natural communities and maintain or restore old forests.” According to the latest update from the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, the state is 89 percent of the way to the 30×30 goal. But significant additional acreage must be protected in the coming years if the state is to meet that target. Given the magnitude of that need, and considering that about 85 percent of Vermont’s forests are in private hands, future state acquisitions of private land alone will likely be insufficient to close the gap.

Private land conservation by nongovernmental organizations like Northeast Wilderness Trust thus has a vital role to play in Vermont’s effort to reach its 30×30 goal. The College Hill Wilderness Sanctuary is an instructive example. Northeast Wilderness Trust worked with the current landowner to keep the parcel from becoming part of the roughly 12,000 acres of forestland Vermont loses to development each year. That the landowner chose to sell the property to a land trust, rather than to a developer or logger, is significant. The parcel has substantial logging and development potential, as its forests have not been cut since the 1940s and it lies close to Stratton Mountain Resort.

This and other active Northeast Wilderness Trust land conservation projects in Vermont, including Hawk’s Nest Wilderness Preserve in the Northeast Kingdom and Journey’s End Wilderness Preserve in Jay, will help the state meet another of its conservation goals. Act 59 is informed by VCD, a statewide conservation framework that identifies conservation priorities across the state’s regions and ecosystems. VCD recommends that at least 9 percent of the state’s forests be old forest. (“Old forests” are generally those older than 80 years.) Because much of Vermont’s forested landscape continues to be managed for timber production, today very little forest, even that which is conserved, is legally protected in a manner that ensures it eventually becomes old.

Northeast Wilderness Trust’s conservation and management approach helps remedy this imbalance by protecting land as “forever-wild,” which delivers a suite of benefits for wildlife and the climate. Once preserved, Northeast Wilderness Trust lands are allowed to passively rewild, which minimizes human influence and allows forests to evolve naturally—increasing in complexity, resilience, and carbon retention. These special places, the old-growth forests of tomorrow, tend to support greater species richness and act as powerful carbon sinks, both of which are critical as humanity confronts the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change.

Despite this multitude of benefits, less than 4 percent of Vermont’s conserved lands are managed as forever-wild. As a result, one of the most effective tools to boost the state’s old-forest acreage to recommended VCD levels remains underutilized. But College Hill and Northeast Wilderness Trust’s other Vermont projects, totaling more than 18,000 acres, are changing that. They are investments in a biologically vibrant and climate-resilient future for Vermont, one where old- growth forests sit alongside younger forests and managed timberlands in a rich conservation mosaic. This is the future Act 59 was designed to create. The kind of private land conservation exemplified by College Hill Wilderness Sanctuary is an essential part of how we get there.