Charlotte preservation project brings neighbors together

VPR Photo/M. Bodette

Marty Illick, Art Burleigh and Joan Allen

Like many older farmers in Vermont, 90-year-old Art Burleigh has been thinking about his family's future.

Three years ago, he reluctantly decided that the only option to keep his family farm going was to develop the forestland on his 200-acre Charlotte property. It's a route many other Chittenden County farmers have taken out of economic necessity.  

But then a neighbor stepped in with a different idea. Marty Illick is director of the Lewis Creek Association, and she helped Art Burleigh get in touch with conservation organizations.

In the end, Art struck a deal with the Lewis Creek Association, The Charlotte Land Trust, the Nature Conservancy and the Vermont Land Trust to save his farm.  He received less money than he would have from a developer, but says it was worth it.

We visited Art recently, and followed him as he took his ATV up a muddy dirt road to show us the beautiful expanse of his land, along with Marty Illick and Joan Allen of the Nature Conservancy.