Stories of Saving Places, Finding Community
Alix W. Hopkins has worked in land conservation for more than twenty years. Over the years, however, she took a somewhat circuitous route in getting there – learning to control avalanches in Utah, working on a ranch in Wyoming and at a salmon cannery in Alaska during the 1970s. In the early 1980s, she worked in public relations, political organizing, and as a freelance photojournalist – acquiring skills which would come in handy down the road.
Finally she found her niche, beginning at the Natural Lands Trust, a regional organization headquartered near Philadelphia, in the late 1980s. In the 1990s she was founding executive director of Portland Trails, the urban, trails-oriented land trust in Portland , Maine , and chair of the Mountain Division Alliance, which promoted the vision for a 50-mile rail-with-trail, now in the works. She lives on an old farm in Pownal, Maine, and currently serves as co-president of the Pownal Land Trust and as a board member of the Maine Coast Heritage Trust, the Northern Forest Canoe Trail, and several other community-oriented nonprofits. Passionate about the value this book can bring to practitioners of all levels – as she, herself, has been, she has spent the past four years creating GROUNDSWELL, and working on every aspect of it, from funding, researching, writing, design, and marketing. She has loved every minute of it. Well, almost every minute.
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