Outreach Highlights

Tending a living heritage

Paul Catanzaro

Paul Catanzaro does see the forest for the trees . . . and for the community . . . and for posterity.

For Catanzaro, who joined UMass Amherst Outreach as a UMass Extension forest specialist just over two years ago, woodlands embody a sense of place that transcends a single owner or single point in time. Woodlands, he says, can reflect a full span of family and community history, and there is a lot more to forest conservation than knowing your trees.

“What we see when we see forest lands has a lot to do with family culture and with community culture,” said Catanzaro. “It has to do with how families and communities make decisions.

Paul Catanzaro has brought a renewed sense of engagement and commitment to the UMass Extension forest conservation program – outreach in the very best and dynamic sense. That becomes abundantly clear when you visit the the website he maintains at http://www.masswoods.net. Paul and land-use specialist Glenn Garber are also the backbone of the newly reinvigorated Center for Rural Massachusetts at UMass Amherst.

While having graduate degrees in silvaculture and forestry, however, Paul Catanzaro reveals a more-than-passing interest in cultural anthropology, his undergraduate major at Hamilton College. He is particularly interested in the process that occurs when a younger generation of landowners is faced with determining the future of forest land that may have been in the family for generations. Conflicting values, priorities and needs – along with the weight of history and community expectations – all enter the equation.

“It can be overwhelming for a family that must suddenly make these decisions. The conversation can be very difficult. For many people, the woods are in the background and they don’t really think about it until the have to,” he notes.

Central to the MassWoods web site are the case histories of families who have actually faced those decisions, and successfully preserved forest land. Working with a grant from the Extension Education Technology Initiative, Paul has been able to tell one such story in the form of a video that is available on the Website, or can be downloaded as podcast. The video highlights how the Riley family of Barre worked with Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust to pass their family land on to the next generation while protecting its natural resources, scenic beauty and family history. The Riley and Mount Grace story demonstrates how families can work with local trusts to plan the future of their family’s land.

Each of the case histories presented by MassWoods is different. The eight parcels span the state and the owners have widely varying goals and strategies in preserving the land. What they have in common is a desire to preserve a legacy and protect woodlands from development, a willingness to plan creatively, and the ability to draw on the support of conservation professionals.

The web site outline the necessary steps and the available tools for preservation, providing links to land trusts, lawyers and appraisers who can help. It is, however, the stories themselves that are most effective in showing exactly what can be done when families and communities commit themselves to preservation.

“I can’t think of a better way to talk about what can be done, and to tell the story of the woods, than to tell a personal story, about real people,” he says.