Sweet Water Trust

  • For more than thirty years, from the early 1990's, Sweet Water Trust actively worked throughout the Northern Appalachian region to protect ecologically significant wildlands. The Trust partnered with more than 90 organizations, including federal and state agencies, towns, non-profit groups, and land trusts. We required a second layer of protection over all conservation lands:  forever wild conservation easements that would be monitored and enforced by a qualified conservation organization separate from ownership. SWT often held these interests until Northeast Wilderness Trust (NEWT) and other partners developed the capacity to assume the protection of the conservation land.

    Follows is a partial list of SWT wildlands projects:

    • The Alder Stream Preserve/Piscataquis River wetland complex, central Maine. 25,000 acres.  

    • Fourth Machias Lake & Fifth Machias Lakes and Fifth Machias Stream, Downeast. With the State of Maine's Duck Lake Eco Reserve, over 15,000 acres.

    • Mount AbrahamEcological Reserve, western Maine. 4,033 acres, significant alpine habitat.

    • Debsconeag Wilderness Preserve. South of Mount Katahdin, 46,000 acres of remote lakes, ponds, and mature forests, The Nature Conservancy, easement to Forest Society of Maine.

    • Katahdin Lake, a wilderness sanctuary. The Trust for Public Lands purchased and conveyed more that 4500 acres to Baxter State Park.

    • Frenchman Bay Community Forest, coastal, 1400 wild acres added to 3100 conserved forest.

    • Howland Research Forest, central Maine, old-growth spruce and hemlock studied by scientists from around the world, purchased by NEWT.

    • Vickie Bunnell Preserve, 15 square miles of wildlands, northern NH. Rugged mountainous terrain acquired by SWT, transferred to TNC, a forever wild easement held by NEWT.  

    • The Stoddard Rocks-Pioneer Lake Preserve, southwestern NH. Purchased by SWT in 1994, now owned by the town of Stoddard, easement held by SPNHF 

    • Wapack Wilderness, southern NH. 1500 acres protects an old trail, joins other conservation areas 

    • The Hersey Mountain Community Forest, central NH, 2141 acres, easement held by NEWT.

    • Jay Peak/Jay, northern VT, part of a glacial cirque, 1,573 acres. 

    • West Mountain Wilderness, 1,170 acres embedded within Vermont’s West Mountain Wildlife Management Area's 22,000 acres. TNC and SWT partnered to remove old logging roads and structures, jump-starting restoration. Easement held by NEWT.

    • Burnt Mountain Preserve, NE Kingdom, 5500 acres of uninterrupted forestland, part of a 11,000 acre block, easement held by NEWT

  • Shingle Shanty / Thayer Lake Preserve, Adirondacks,15,536 acres embedded in nearly one million acres of forever wild state and private lands.

  • 51 grants for conservation totaling almost 7000 wild acres added to existing wild areas 

    • Black Falls in northern Vermont, Green Mountain Club 3,764 acres 

    • Mount Sutton, SWT continued transboundary work into southern Quebec with the acquisition of the Domtar lands, 10,000 acres. The Nature Conservancy of Canada, (NCC) easements appurtenant running to local land trusts. 

    • The Canadian side of the border, roadless wildland of 6,300 acres, NCC.

The Trust changed to Sweet Water Fund in 2022, where it presently resides at the Northeast Wilderness Trust, generating funds to support wildlands protection into the future.