College Hill Wilderness Sanctuary

Jamaica, VT 587 acres Visitor Guidelines Download Map

A Rare Opportunity to Expand a Forever-Wild Sanctuary in Southern Vermont

Northeast Wilderness Trust’s 587-acre College Hill Wilderness Sanctuary, established in 2025 in Jamaica, Vermont, is a refuge for wildlife and well on its way to becoming an old-growth forest. Four parcels for sale on the northern border of the Sanctuary—170 acres in total—now offer an opportunity to expand the Sanctuary by nearly thirty percent.

A Future Old-Growth Forest

Unlike its southern neighbor, the Chickadee Addition bears fresh evidence of human management. One of the impressive features of College Hill Wilderness Sanctuary is the age of its forests, which have not been logged since at least the 1940s. On the Chickadee Addition, however, logging, including cuts made to maximize views of the Green Mountains, has rendered the forests younger and more fragmented.

Recent changes on the property underscore the urgent need to bring it under forever-wild protection. The Chickadee Addition was slated for rural development in the heart of a forest block deemed highest priority for conservation for its interior-forest conditions and connectivity value by Vermont Conservation Design. A driveway had already been cleared at the Addition’s highest point.

Expanding College Hill to encompass the Chickadee Addition will ensure these recovering forests retain their immense value for biodiversity, growing old like their College Hill counterparts and supporting unimpeded wildlife movement. With time, these 170 acres will boost Vermont’s paltry tally of old-growth forest, advance the goals of Vermont Conservation Design, and draw more carbon down from the atmosphere.

Safeguarding Critical Wildlife Habitat

Conserving the Chickadee Addition will benefit both wildlife and regional water quality. In the property’s southwestern corner lies an active beaver wetland, environs for mink, moose, and other mammalian and aquatic inhabitants. A stream flowing from the wetland into the current Sanctuary joins with Ball Mountain Brook and eventually the West River further south.

Imperiled winged residents will also find shelter here. Vermont Fish & Wildlife has mapped both the Addition and the current Sanctuary as summer habitat for the federally endangered northern long-eared and tricolored bats. These species rely on large, gnarled trees for roosting sites, rarities on managed lands but future fixtures of the Chickadee Addition as the property rewilds.

With your support, the Chickadee Addition and College Hill Wilderness Sanctuary have a wild future.

Chickadee Addition at a glance

Size: 170 acres

Location: Jamaica, Windham County, Vermont

Context: Young forests and a beaver wetland abutting the 587-acre College Hill Wilderness Sanctuary

Objective: Expand current wilderness sanctuary with additional acreage to protect biodiversity and boost future old-growth forest

Map of Chickadee Addition to College Hill

At present, College Hill Wilderness Sanctuary spans 587 acres in Jamaica, Vermont.

Preserving a rare gem in a rapidly developing area.

The College Hill Wilderness Sanctuary’s namesake summit offers more than just a view. On this 2,091-foot peak lives a rare natural community, Dry Red Oak-White Pine Forest, underrepresented in wilderness conservation in the Northeast. Down the slopes and around the Sanctuary’s almost 600 acres are also a rich tapestry of older forest, clear streams, and prime habitat for many wildlife species.

The vast majority of this land has not been logged for more than seven decades—a rarity in an area subject to increasing development pressures. The result is a remarkably intact and structurally complex forest for the region, one well on its way to the ecological and structural complexity characteristic of the old-growth forests that Vermont—and the Northeast—are sorely lacking.

These healthy forests provide needed habitat and forage for a variety of wildlife. The property’s red oaks and American beeches produce nuts (mast) for species like black bear, turkey, and Blue Jay. The property is also within an area mapped by the State of Vermont as habitat for the northern long-eared bat and tricolored bat, both of which are categorized by the federal government as endangered species. College Hill’s mature and shaggy-barked trees provide these species with roosting and denning sites, which will only increase in number as the forests here grow old and more complex—another example of the ways forever wild conservation benefits sensitive wildlife that rely on intact, undisturbed ecosystems in which to live and raise their young.

College Hill’s conservation merits are impressive in and of themselves—but the project’s ecological significance flows beyond its borders. The property sits in a region identified by Vermont Conservation Design as the highest priority for conservation due to its potential to boost landscape connectivity and interior-forest habitat.

One look at College Hill’s surroundings makes clear why. To the west of the Sanctuary is the expansive Green Mountain National Forest, which connects the southern portion of the state with other conserved lands in central and northern Vermont. The College Hill Wilderness Sanctuary would extend protections to an underrepresented, vulnerable mid-elevation ecosystem while adding a crucial piece of core protected wilderness at the southern end of this conservation corridor. That connectivity is especially critical in a changing climate. Wide-ranging species that call Vermont and the Northeast home—including wildlife like moose and bobcat—need a robust network of conserved lands to move across the landscape as they adapt to rising temperatures and shifting habitats. College Hill Wilderness Sanctuary, made forever-wild by Northeast Wilderness Trust ownership and a conservation easement held by Vermont River Conservancy, accelerates this momentum at a defining time for Vermont’s—and the Northeast’s—climate and biodiversity.

Uncommon Plants and Animals Thrive in a Mature Forest

Thanks to a lack of human disturbance over past decades, College Hill Wilderness Sanctuary’s forests are in terrific ecological shape. This has allowed advanced ecological and structural conditions to emerge, a head-start on the path to old-growth forest.

Atop College Hill is a Dry Red Oak-White Pine Forest, a natural community uncommon in Vermont. The milder microclimate on the southern face of the summit gives rise to this area’s red oaks and white pines, as well as red maple and hophornbeam. Beneath these trees lies a shrub layer of species like lowbush blueberry and striped maple, all atop beds of partridgeberry, bracken fern, hawkweed, and more.

The rest of the property showcases a typical Northern Hardwood Forest landscape, with one standout feature rare for Vermont: structural complexity. The beech, yellow birch, sugar maple, and other trees here are of a large diameter, with shorter lived species dying and contributing to College Hill’s ecologically critical stocks of standing dead snags and coarse woody debris.

College Hill Wilderness Sanctuary at a glance

Size: 587 acres

Location: Jamaica, Windham County, Vermont

Context: Healthy, structurally complex forest with rare natural communities just east of the Green Mountain National Forest.

Objective: Forever-wild ecological sanctuary that boosts landscape connectivity.

College Hill

Will you help Northeast Wilderness Trust protect more wilderness?

Help expand College Hill Wilderness Sanctuary! The Chickadee Addition to College Hill would ensure these recovering forests retain their immense value for biodiversity in southern Vermont. Expansions such as these are a priority for Northeast Wilderness Trust, as they offer the chance to connect forever-wild parcels and boost habitat linkages.

Together, we can ensure a healthier future for this land and the wildlife that depend on it. You can help by:

Sending a check made out to Northeast Wilderness Trust with “Chickadee Addition” written in the memo line.
Making a gift online through the donation box on this page.
Giving through a Donor-Advised Fund (indicate “Chickadee Addition”) at https://newildernesstrust.org/giving.
Making a gift of stock or other publicly traded securities. Please contact Nicie Panetta, Vice President of Advancement, at nicie@newildernesstrust.org.

Thank you!

Photography: College Hill Wilderness Sanctuary Wade Weathers/LandVest and Shelby Perry, Bobcat Larry Master, Northern long-eared bat by Al Hicks/NYDEC is licensed under CC BY 2.0, Partridgeberry by Erin Lunsford Jones is public domain.

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Welcomed Activities

Walking, hiking, snowshoeing & cross-country skiing
Photography, wildlife observation & nature study
Dogs under voice or leash control

Prohibited Activities
Motorized vehicles (ATVs, dirt bikes, 4x4s, snowmobiles, or other motorized or mechanized vehicles)
Bicycles
Horses or pack animals
Camping, fires & fireworks
Loud music or radios
All hunting, fishing, trapping, and hounding.
Cutting or damaging plants or trees
New trails or unauthorized trail maintenance
Launching & landing drones

Click here to read NEWT Preserve & Sanctuary Visitation Guidelines