The southern pine beetle has devastated parts of some of the Island's forests. Conservation groups are in the early stages of fighting back.

Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation and The Nature Conservancy received the grants for conservation projects in Edgartown and West Tisbury from the state Department of Fish and Game. 

The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank and Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation bought a majority of the historic Chappaquiddick property from the descendants of the Potter and Slater families for $13.78 million.

Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation this week received a $75,000 grant from the state to help combat an invasive beetle infestation in the Phillips Preserve forest in Tisbury. 

Pimpneymouse Farm, the historic coastal farm that has graced the eastern-facing shoreline of Chappaquiddick for nearly a century, will be preserved in a joint conservation purchase by the Martha's Vineyard Land Bank and the Sheriff's Meadow Foundation.

Seven years after it was first proposed, a project meant to improve the water quality and ecosystem at the Sheriff’s Meadow Roth Woodlands has yet to get underway.

Rapidly, at a pace of 10 feet per day, an infection of southern pine beetle is spreading in the pitch pine forest at Sheriff’s Meadow’s Phillips Preserve near Lake Tashmoo.

Beech leaf disease has made its way to the Island and its devastation to the Vineyard's abundant beech tree population is starting to show.

The Vineyard Golf Club completed its purchase this week of four lots owned by the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation in the old Vineyard Acres II subdivision off the West Tisbury Road in Edgartown.

The four lots include four acres of land and were sold to the golf club by the conservation group for $310,000. Of that, $10,000 was paid to the foundation as an option at the time of the sale agreement and was used to cover legal expenses associated with the sale.