Thursday, May 29, 2008

And So The Fun Begins!

Hello, and welcome! James and Emily here, and we are the LANDS 2008 Program Leaders. This first post is to introduce readers to the LANDS program. The 9-week LANDS internship is for upper-level college students, and is a partnership between the Student Conservation Association (SCA) and The University of Vermont. The interns come from colleges and universities around the United States, but we are based at the University of Vermont in Burlington. Although they may be from all over, every intern comes prepared with a background in natural resources, and an interest in the field of land conservation.

Our goal is to assist land trusts, towns, municipalities and conservation organizations with our skills by helping them perform a variety of stewardship tasks. Our projects range from monitoring, boundary maintenance, to creating resources and documentation about conserved properties. Simultaneously, the program seeks to help interns acquire skills that are used in conservation work. Interns leave the program with an understanding of a wide variety of skills while our land conservation partners get valuable products and services.

The LANDS program had its inaugural year in 2007 and it was a great success! This year we are looking forward to a whole new crew and set of projects and it sure is shaping up to be a great summer. We are looking forward to the coming weeks and hope this blog can provide an interesting view into what we're up to. If you're interested in learning more about the LANDS program and what it was like last year, feel free to check out our website at:

http://www.uvm.edu/~conserve/lands.html


Thanks for reading and happy trails!

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