Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation and the state Department of Conservation and Recreation have finalized an agreement to close and restore more than 25 miles of trails that were illegally cut.
A long trail of good intentions that began with a once-promising partnership between the state and Sheriff’s Meadow ended with an announcement that 25 miles of unpermitted trails would be closed.
The Department of Conservation and Recreation plans to immediately close some 25 miles of unpermitted trails that were carved into the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest.
Filling a long-term vacancy, the state Department of Conservation and Recreation has hired Conor Laffey of Falmouth as the new superintendent for the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest.
The State, acting through the fish and game commission, has under consideration the purchase of the 600-acre farm of Antone Andrews, located on the Martha’s Vineyard plain, near Little Pond some three miles from Edgartown, for the purpose of establishing on the tract a state reservation for the better protection of the heath hen, or pinnated grouse. As is well known, the few fowl of this species on the Vineyard are the last of this famous branch of the grouse family. Nowhere else in the world are these heath hen found.
A conservation army, numbering 219 men, will arrive on the Island today to take up the work of reforestation in the state reservation under the federal plan for relieving unemployment. This army is one that has been through the preliminary course of training at Camp Devens, and will be in charge of a captain and two lieutenants of the regular army, besides a detail of military police.
With significant drought conditions still desiccating the region and the state forest without a full time superintendent, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission has received approximately $25,000 in state and federal money to develop a first-of-its-kind wildfire preparedness plan for the Island.
Unpermitted trail clearing in the state forest has led to a citation from state environmental officials for violations of the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act.
As wildfires rage across the West Coast, members of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission expressed grave concern about the status of the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest.
