OSI Annual Report 2005 - Open Space Institute

OSi in print
•This year, OSI developed a new conservation loan program
for western Massachusetts.
• As a precursor to this program launch, OSI staff completed
a comprehensive assessment: “Western Massachusetts:
Assessing the Conservation Opportunity.”
• In 005, OSI staff completed a detailed assessment of the
Southern Appalachians, a 70-million-acre ecosystem,
which serves as a strategic guide for the new conservation
program for the region.
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More and more, OSI’s work in the field is being translated to the
written word, affording us the opportunity to report on pressing
conservation issues in a timely fashion.
•This year, we published two issues of OPEN SPACE.
• In our summer issue, we featured the cumulative impact of
OSI’s work in Putnam County, where we have protected
thousands of acres of open space and, most notably, doubled
the size of Fahnestock State Park.
• In the fall issue, we featured farming in the HudsonValley,
looking at the past, present and future of agriculture.
OSI will soon complete a study detailing the impacts of Working Forest Conservation Easements on biodiversity in the Northern
Forest as well as a retrospective on OSI’s Northern Forest Protection Fund, which has distributed $15 million in grants and
loans to protect more than 1.4 million acres of forestland over the last five years. under the auspices of the Institute, we are also
assembling a team of economists to initiate a series of independent studies of the Plum Creek development proposal for the
Moosehead Lake region in Maine.
Our publications and reports are available online. Go to www.osiny.org and click on “Press Room.”