About IHT - Island Heritage Trust

About Island Heritage Trust

Our Story

The Island Heritage Trust is a non-profit private land trust dedicated to conservation that protects significant open space, scenic areas, wildlife habitats, natural resources, and historic and cultural features that offer public benefit and are essential to the character of the Deer Isle area.

Our membership is open to all. We are funded by the tax-deductible charitable contributions of our members. A board of 11 volunteer members governs the Trust through its Chair and Executive Director and staff.

Mission Statement

IHT contributes to the well-being of the island community by conserving its distinctive landscapes and natural resources, maintaining public access to valued trails, shoreline and islands, and by providing educational programming for all ages.

History

Island Heritage Trust was founded in 1987 by citizens concerned about protecting Deer Isle from acute development pressure that threatened to cut off residents from the shore and traditional use of the land.

In the intervening years, the Trust has taken in, through voluntary donation, conservation easements on over 845 acres of shoreland, wildlife habitat, islands, and forests, protecting over 13 miles of shore. At the same time, IHT has taken ownership of eighteen properties from Mark Island with its lighthouse, Settlement Quarry, and Causeway Beach. Properties owned by the Trust total over 660 acres, protecting an additional 10 miles of shoreline. Our offices are now in our own building next to the Deer Isle-Stonington Historical Society in Sunset.

After several part-time Executive Directors, Mac Herrling was hired as its first full-time “ED” in December, 2003. His hiring began a process to go with professional management and to boost our stewardship fund to take care of the preserves and conservation easements we protect in perpetuity.

Mike Little served as IHT’s second Executive Director from 2008 – 2018. In 2018, Paul Miller was hired as IHT’s third Executive Director and worked for two years to meet the challenges of land trust management in this modern world. He left to return to his family in Rhode Island in June 2020.

Following Paul’s departure, the Board of Trustees asked Julia Zell (then IHT’s Development Director) to serve as interim Executive Director while they conducted a nation-wide search. Julia decided to formally apply for the position, and was officially appointed IHT’s Executive Director in September 2020.

Island Heritage Trust now has a year-round staff of five, bringing a further degree of professionalism to IHT’s operations and meeting the increasing demands of effectively stewarding the land we are sworn to protect, contributing to the well-being of the community, and furthering educational opportunities for all.

Accreditation

Island Heritage Trust became an accredited land trust in February 2022, a status that can be renewed every five years. Accreditation means Island Heritage Trust meets national quality standards of sound finances, ethical conduct, and responsible governance, and can ensure lasting stewardship. We are honored to be a part of the accredited conservation community and continue protecting important natural places and working lands forever.

Board of Trustees and IHT Staff

Board of Trustees

Catherine Washburn, Chair
Rod Greenwood, Treasurer
Mickie Flores, Secretary

Dave Bayley
Elke Dorr
Valerie Duncan
Anna Goff
Michele Janin
Lynne Rockwood
Bill Wiegmann
Douglas Wilson

Julia Zell

Executive Director

Julia is a life-long lover of the outdoors and passionate about conservation. Some of her favorite times on the preserves are during the winter, covered in snow, and accessed by cross-country skis. Originally from the mountains of Vermont and with a background as an artist whose work was often informed by the natural world, she looks to bring her creativity and interdisciplinary experience to leadership. Through fostering strong relationships with the surrounding community since joining IHT in 2019, Julia works to build deep connections to support, protect, and care for Deer Isle’s trails, shoreline, and islands, as well as the educational programs that connect people to these lands.

Alex Drenga

Conservation Director

Born and raised in the Northeast, Alex feels fortunate to have grown up in an area that offers excellent outdoor recreation, natural resources, history, and culture. Alex aims to devote as much time as he can to enjoying the outdoors as he believes that time spent in nature is an important component of any healthy lifestyle. The positive wellness that one gains through connecting with nature is one of the reasons that he is so excited to contribute to the mission of IHT. He believes that the Deer Isle area and surrounding islands is a place where nature can be therapeutic and inspire wonder. Alex brings a working knowledge of natural resource management and outdoor education to his conservation work and looks forward to furthering the support for IHT’s mission.

Noël Ruth

Outreach Manager

Throughout her nomadic lifestyle of over ten years, the one place on the map Noël kept circling back to was Deer Isle. Captivated by the purity of landscape and community culture, she decided to officially call it home in 2022. As a freelance writer and seeker of wild spaces, Noël’s years of travel around America with her dog Blue awakened an insatiable curiosity for how authentic communication can help us create more sustainable, harmonious relationships between land, animal, and people. She is excited to unite her background in restorative communications with her love for Nature to join the community in protecting the beautiful woods and shores of Deer Isle. Noël is passionate about poetry, writing circles, hiking, and returning to ancestral ways of living.

Martha Bell

Environmental Educator

Martha has lived in Maine for 25 years and considers the Peninsula home after growing up in Connecticut. She loves being outdoors and favors extremely low tides, a perfect time to study intertidal zones. With a love for sharing the natural world with kids, she’s worked in Environmental Education for over 35 years at various organizations including Coastal Studies in Provincetown and the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History, and more recently at the Marine Environmental Research Institute in Blue Hill (now the Shaw Institute). Martha has been working for IHT since 2014. She enjoys hiking, swimming, gardening and kayaking; and lives in Blue Hill with her husband Mark.

Jacob McCarty

Development Director

Jacob’s favorite season on the Island is autumn. He enjoys the crunch of leaves beneath his boots and the quiet rush of a brisk breeze. Jacob grew up in Western Massachusetts and lived in Boston for five years. In 2017, he became a year-round resident. Jacob worked as a lobster fisherman out of Stonington for two years when he first lived on Deer Isle, and in 2019 started Burnt Cove Boil on Fifield Point, serving for dinner during the summers. Swimming as often as possible in the summers, Jacob feels passionate about maintaining shore access for all. He looks forward to playing a hand in preserving Island heritage while taking action in the future of land conservation.

Terry Real

Summer Stewardship Assistant

Terry has been coming to Deer Isle since 1991, when he and his wife Amy enjoyed their honeymoon in Stonington. He recently retired from practicing law in South Carolina, and is looking forward to spending more time on the island. He is delighted to be working outside in the summer stewardship position and welcomes the opportunity to be part of the Island Heritage Trust.

Land Conservation

The conservation program of the Island Heritage Trust is directed to one goal: permanent conservation of land that offers public benefit and that preserves the natural and scenic resources of Deer Isle for future generations.

All land owned by IHT (608 acres) is open for public access although most of our conservation easements are not open to the public.

Please find the updated version of “Conservation Options” A Guide for Maine Land Owners, published by Maine Coast Heritage Trust here.

Conserving Land

In each case, we work by voluntary, cooperative, and confidential relationships with individual landowners to develop the most appropriate conservation method for their property.

Deciding to conserve your land requires careful, thorough consideration of your family’s interests for the future of the property. The heart of the process is really your hope to permanently protect the scenic beauty, wildlife habitats, and valuable natural resources of your land.

Donating a Conservation Easement

A conservation easement is a type of deed that keeps land in private ownership but has specific covenants that describe how the land can be used. The easement is donated to Island Heritage Trust, which accepts a perpetual obligation to monitor the property to assure that the conservation protections will be sustained in the future.

Easements are custom-fit to the interests of the landowner and the Trust, with the Trust ensuring the public benefits and conservation values of the property are conserved.

Once land is under easement, the landowners may live on and manage the land, sell it, or pass it on to their heirs. It is still their land. The easement, however, is a legal agreement that remains in effect forever and is enforceable in court. Because the land remains in private ownership, the landowners continue to manage it and decide if the public is allowed on their land. Public benefits that result from conservation easements include protection of all issues in our mission statement from open space and public access to wildlife habitat.

Island Heritage Trust holds conservation easements on 853 acres around Deer Isle.

Donating Land

Our preserves are properties for which the Trust owns full title. Some preserves were donated to us by generous landowners who wished to leave a legacy for future generations by permanently conserving their property while providing the community with a full opportunity to appreciate its natural and scenic values. When a landowner offers to donate land to the Trust, we evaluate it thoroughly to determine that it has substantial conservation value and public benefits. Once land is accepted for conservation as a preserve, we are committed to protecting it perpetually, so we need to assure that the proposed preserve will merit the effort and expense of permanent stewardship obligations.

Purchasing Conservation Land

Because real estate is quite expensive and we must raise funds for land purchases, purchasing land is not our general practice. However, in some instances, the Island Heritage Trust will purchase properties with exceptional conservation values. When we do decide to purchase land, we negotiate on a voluntary basis with the landowner for a “bargain sale” price.

Some landowners can benefit from a “bargain sale” of their property—that is, a sale for substantially below the appraised value. The difference between the appraised value and the purchase price is considered a tax-deductible charitable donation. A bargain sale is a true demonstration of the landowner’s generosity and commitment to conserving their property, while producing important mutual financial benefits for both landowner and Land Trust.

Stewardship & Access

Browntail Moth Web Clipping 101:

You’ll need:

Bucket
Hand pruners or loppers
Pole pruner
Gloves, long sleeves, and long pants (Always cover-up to protect against toxic hairs that may be present in your trees & shrubs from caterpillar activity.) We also recommend eye protection.

What to do:

Survey the trees and shrubs on your property for browntail webs. Common host trees and shrubs include: oak, apple, crabapple, cherry, hawthorn, serviceberry, and rugosa rose. Not sure how to identify browntail webs? This brochure has great information on how to spot them and distinguish them from the webs of other common caterpillars. Tip: the webs are the easiest to see on bright sunny days.
If you find browntail moth webs, clip off just the very end of the branch bearing the web. If the webs are low to the ground, you can use hand pruners or loppers, but if the webs are higher up, you may need a pole pruner.
Clip one web at a time and put it immediately in the bucket. Don’t attempt to cut a bunch of webs and then try to find them later. Once the webs hit the ground, they can be very tricky to find and it doesn’t do any good to clip the webs and leave them on the ground.
Destroy the webs by soaking them in soapy water for 3-5 days (we recommend a heavy-duty dish soap like Dawn) or by burning them.
Enjoy your newly de-mothed trees and shrubs!

Questions? Want to borrow a pole pruner? Please contact Jake at jmccarty@islandheritagetrust.org. If you’d like to help clip webs independently on IHT preserves, we would very much welcome your assistance. Please email Jake and we can direct you to areas that need help.