The Vermont Land Trust will explore the connection between land access, equity, and justice with keynote speaker, Xusana Davis, Executive Director of Racial Equity for the State of Vermont and head of the newly established Racial Equity Task Force.
On a mid-summer morning Fred Pratt sat on his cabin’s front porch, high on a Duxbury hillside, listening to birdsong from the surrounding forest. “There’s a yellowthroat down there,” he said. “And there’s a catbird, and robins of course, and another warbler, maybe a chestnut-sided.”
“When things are insecure, it’s not a bad idea to produce more food,” said Angus Baldwin as he deftly cut and bound flat-leaf parsley. “I wasn’t sure if we’d be selling or giving it away this year, but I figured there would be a need for it.” Angus operates the nonprofit West Farm on VLT’s Brewster Uplands Conservation Trust property in Jeffersonville. The parsley was destined for the USDA Farmers to Families Food Box program, one of several partners Angus is working with this year to get healthy food in the hands of those who need it.
Conservation organizations across the country are struggling with how to best respond and react in this moment of social change, when the call to action is clear and profound: repudiate racist culture and commit to dismantling racism in all its forms. The Vermont Land Trust is no exception.
