Release Date: August 31, 2021

Bedford Hills, NY—Westchester Land Trust (WLT), a nationally accredited land conservation organization headquartered in Bedford Hills, NY, hired members of Groundwork Hudson Valley’s Green Team for the first time this summer. The Green Team is comprised of 25 students who are enrolled in the Yonkers Public School system who are interested in learning more about environmental stewardship and conservation careers. For many, the Green Team is their first professional job experience. The career development program focuses on leadership skills and group dynamics, and provides students with a wide variety of field-based conservation experiences. While working with WLT staff and interns, Green Team members gained first-hand experience learning about land management strategies.

“A lot of the work I did with Westchester Land Trust felt meaningful, rewarding, and educational which is all that I needed to really enjoy my summer here,” said Erick Rosa (orange hat), one of WLT’s two paid summer interns who worked with WLT staff to lead the Groundwork Hudson Valley Green Team building bog bridges at Westchester Land Trust’s Otter Creek Preserve in Mamaroneck, NY.

The team of students focused on land restoration projects related to the impacts of climate change, deer over-browse, and invasive species. Green Team crews worked at WLT’s Otter Creek Preserve in Mamaroneck and Pine Croft Meadow Preserve in Waccabuc. Both preserves are open to the public free of charge, year-round. WLT’s paid summer interns, Erick Rosa and Briana Marcano, who are recent graduates of the Green Team program themselves, worked alongside WLT’s stewardship staff to lead the Green Team crew.

“Thanks to the hard work by members of the Green Team, and our incredibly talented summer interns Erick and Briana, we were able to complete large-scale projects in less than a week,” said John Zeiger, WLT’s preserve manager who supervised the projects. “Ecological impacts from climate change, deer over-browse and invasive plants are happening all around us in Westchester County and summer is a very important time for us to stay ahead of this work.”

About the Projects

WLT acquired the 39 acres that make up Otter Creek Preserve through several transactions between 2013 and 2019. Located on the Long Island Sound in Mamaroneck, the preserve’s woodlands have been affected by climate change with stronger storm surges and damaging winds in recent years. These stressors to native plants, coupled with deer browse and invasive vines, can wreak havoc on the ecosystem which is a critical migratory bird resting site. Green Team members worked to expand the elevated bog bridge footpath by 100 feet and rebuilt more than 1,000 feet of fencing to keep deer from foraging on young native trees that have been planted over the past three years. In addition, Green Team members planted 20 native wildflower species to enhance the preserve’s pollinator habitat.

Heading north to WLT’s nine-acre Pine Croft Meadow Preserve in Waccabuc (acquired in 1998), the Green Team addressed the invasion of mile-a-minute vine which threatens native wildflowers and young trees on this preserve and negatively impacts habitats needed by native animals. True to its name, mile-a-minute grows quickly, and can out compete native plants. The Green Team worked diligently to remove more than 32,000 mile-a-minute vines in six hours.

WLT’s intern stipends and the hiring of the Green Team were funded by private donations to the land trust, as well as through grants from the Long Island Sound Stewardship Fund at the Long Island Community Foundation and Rusticus Garden Club. Additionally, this project was contracted by the Lower Hudson Partnership for Regional Invasive Species Management using funds from the Environmental Protection Fund as administered by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

To learn more about these programs and how you can get involved or support them, please contact Kara Whelan at Kara@Westchesterlandtrust.org.