The visionary conservation giant George Wislocki passed away last week at 89. George served as founder and president of the county-wide land trust Berkshire Natural Resources Council (BNRC) and had a hand in establishing several town-scale land trusts in Berkshire County, including ours.
At our 20th Anniversary Annual Meeting in 2006, Rural Lands’ first board president Mary Lou Galusha recounted that meeting George at a Hancock Shaker Village event served as impetus to gather some 100 people at a picnic to plan ways to save open space in Williamstown. The picnic led to the formation of WRLF in 1986. George mentioned then that the “local land trust is one of the few ways a community can take control of a community.”
“Now it is 20 years later and most of the Berkshire community land trusts which were formed in the 80s have gone on to acquire magnificent lands within their boundaries. The diversity of these holdings is quite wonderful. Included in the Stockbridge Land Trust holdings is a tiny lot which has traditionally served as the town commons for the settlement of Interlaken, but which was never publicly owned. Williamstown Rural Land Foundation’s acquisition of the Arthur Rosenburg farm with its assemblage of barns, dwelling and sheds, and commitment to use this property for educational programs in natural history and rural heritage maybe the most ambitious project ever undertaken by any of the town land trusts in western Massachusetts. One of my favorites of all the land acquisitions undertaken in the Berkshires is Williamstown’s acquisition of Caretaker Farm, with its carefully drafted deed restrictions which assure that these lands will not only be forever protected as prime agricultural lands but will be continued to be worked as a family farm serving the needs of its surrounding community.
” … And so it is that on the 20th anniversary of the Williamstown Rural Land Foundation I congratulate you on your achievements to date, and I hope that in a hundred years, others will look back on your achievements while they enjoy the bounty of Caretaker Farm and the many other lands which you will have assembled.”
George S. Wislocki
President Emeritus
Berkshire Natural Resources Council