Galen Koch: [00:00:01] First, I will just have you just – this is just to test levels. Tell me, maybe you didn’t have breakfast, but how your morning went?

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:00:12] My morning was great. I am a creature of habit. I had an egg with kale and a piece of sourdough toast.

Galen Koch: [00:00:21] Perfect. Great. All right, so I’ll have you say just your full name and introduce yourself a little bit first.

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:00:30] My name is Tamara Lee Pinard. I live in Gray, Maine, where I have lived since I’ve been working with the soil – oh, my goodness, that was my last job. That’s not even where I’m now. Tamara Lee Pinard, I live in Gray, Maine. I have been living in Gray since I’ve been with Presumpscot Regional Land Trust [PRLT], and I have worked in the environmental field for over twenty years, over twenty-five years, however many years, a long time. What I’ve realized in terms of working within the environmental field is that conserving our land is one of the best methods we can use to truly protect and ensure that our land is available for the future.

Galen Koch: [00:01:30] Awesome. How did you first hear about the Land Trust?

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:01:35] I was on the board of the Presumpscot River Watch Group starting in 1998. Presumpscot Regional Land Trust was one of the Presumpscot groups out there, so I was always aware of the Land Trust, and we always had complementary work. Then, when Rachelle [Curran Apse] became the executive director and was looking at what made sense for the future and approached Presumpscot River Watch Group about merging, it just made a whole lot of sense. Our board agreed that the water quality component matched with the Land Trust just made a whole lot of sense.

Galen Koch: [00:02:22] Why did you get involved to begin with? I mean, what was the inspiration for the River Watch Group?

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:02:30] I was an AmeriCorps volunteer with the Department of Environmental Protection and, in that role, helped Presumpscot River Watch develop their quality assurance project plan, which was to ensure that the data they were collecting on the river and the tributaries was quality data. So, my connection to the volunteers was established during that time. I just really appreciated these folks who had been testing the river for years and just cared so deeply about the water quality. I just wanted to see that continue. So, that was why I got involved with the River Watch group. Then, when we merged with the Land Trust, it just made a whole lot of sense to continue on. It was important to me that the water quality component stayed an important stream – pun intended – of what we were doing as an organization.

Galen Koch: [00:03:46] So, your timeline – you joined as a volunteer in 1999?

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:03:55] 1998. Then, we merged in 2016, and I became one of actually three co-presidents at that time. We made a decision that we were merging the Windham Land Trust, Presumpscot Regional Land Trust, and Presumpscot River Watch Group. It was really important as part of that merger process that we all had representation in the leadership of the group, which was brilliant and actually really set us up for some great success in terms of how we structured our leadership moving forward, which was we did move from having three co-presidents to only having two co-presidents. But the co-president model was a really great one to just allow people to lean into leadership without feeling they had to hold it all by themselves.

Galen Koch: [00:04:54] Who were the three, and then who were the two?

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:04:57] Oh, that’s a great question.

Galen Koch: [00:05:00] I might know. I might be able to prompt you.

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:05:03] I know it was Priscilla Payne.

Galen Koch: [00:05:07] Mike?

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:05:08] Oh, and Mike.  Of course. Mike Parker.

Galen Koch: [00:05:13] Then, it went down to two.

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:05:15] And then it was Priscilla and me.

Galen Koch: [00:05:19] You stayed on – how long did you stay on in that position?

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:05:23] That’s a great question. I’m so bad with dates. It was either 2021 or 2022. It was either a year ago or two years ago. Time is fungible. Of course, this is Covid time, right? Who knows?

Galen Koch: [00:05:49] I know. We lost a couple of years.

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:05:50] We did.

Galen Koch: [00:05:50] Can you tell me some of the highlights during your time in leadership, but also your time in general?

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:05:58] I think for me, I so appreciate the question because for me, it’s not about these peaks in what happened; it was more just the incremental success over time. We all stand on the shoulders of someone, right? The Land Trust had this beautiful foundation where they had done a really big project – Randall – and that was prior to me. But the reality of that project and the fact that they were able to pull together the funding to do this really big deal just set us up for success moving forward because you know you can do it once; success breeds success, and that really laid the foundation for all of the great work that has happened over the last ten years. The other piece that I feel has been a real success is – again, it’s those incremental components, but it’s really about engaging with the community in a way that we didn’t have the capacity to before. Conservation has a history of being very white and very privileged. When you own and manage land, you have a responsibility to really make that land accessible to folks that maybe haven’t always seen it as a safe place for them or a desirable place for them. What I have seen in terms of our learning as a Land Trust and where we’re going for the future is that we’re laying the building blocks. We recognize the importance of equity, making land accessible, and creating a sense of belonging for everyone as something that is – that’s our future. I see a lot of potential for us to be able to realize that in the work we continue to do.

Galen Koch: [00:08:15] How did you do some of that work?

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:08:21] It was a lot of looking at our own privilege and recognizing how we manage our resources and what land we’re looking to conserve. One example is the Mill Brook Preserve, which is right in Westbrook. There are elements of it that are much more accessible, and we also have preserves where you can access them on a bus route. So, folks within Westbrook have been introduced to these preserves and realized that they have this gem in their backyard that they can enjoy. Definitely, when you go out on the Mill Brook Preserve – it’s my favorite preserve, by the way, which might be obvious – it’s so close to an urban area, and yet you feel like you are fully in the woods and really away from everything. You hear the babbling stream. Of course, when alewives are running, it’s truly amazing and just so cool. I have teenage daughters. Oh, they’re not teenagers anymore. Well, one is a teenager, and one’s twenty now, but when they were both teenagers and hard to impress, I took them out on a walk to Mill Brook to see the alewives, and they were astounded, which was just like – if you can impress a teenager, that’s just next level. That’s probably why it holds a special place in my heart.

Galen Koch: [00:10:09] That’s great. That is a very special place. There was one thing that – I think it was Mike who mentioned the Stewardship Fund, and I’m wondering if you can talk about that because I think you were mentioned as someone who could speak about the decision to not spend all of that money. There is a whole series of decisions that were made that some other people pinpointed as really important to the organization. I think you were in a leadership position at that point.

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:10:44] My view of the Stewardship Fund is the recognition that when we conserve lands, we are taking on the responsibility to steward that in perpetuity. So, ensuring that you have the finances to properly steward that land in perpetuity is incredibly important. The Randall deal that I spoke about before was the first time that we really put this huge endowment in place for stewardship and recognized the value of that. The other component, though, that we did, and I really have to give such props to the staff here because they have put in the time to really understand what it takes to take care of the land and all that goes into that. They have carefully tracked their time, looked at the metrics of what it takes, so then they came to the board and recommended to us that we expand how much we’re putting aside for stewardship when we conserve a piece of land. That is really setting us up for success, and the fact that you have that money there, you know that you can tap that if you need it, but also it’s okay to just have it sit and earn money, which is what has ultimately happened with the money from Randall. But it definitely, again, sets us up for funders having confidence in us as an organization they can trust that is going to handle the money well as well as the land that we have made a commitment to.

Galen Koch: [00:12:45] Yeah, it’s like all the pieces that are a little bit hidden that are really important to success.

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:12:53] The other piece is really succession planning. Definitely accreditation and everything that we went through to just ensure that we’re dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s. As part of that, it really allowed us as an organization to walk through all of the mechanics and all the structures that you need in place to really think about what it means to be here forever. Not all organizations are structured that way. Sometimes, you meet your mission, and you sunset. But when you have taken on the responsibility of land, that sunsetting component isn’t realistic. Particularly when it comes to equity work, and we think about how we’re setting ourselves up for the future around that, it was really important that we think about the fact that we shouldn’t just have the same people in leadership forever. You need that transition, and you need new people joining in, stepping up, and bringing new perspectives and new ideas so that you continue to be relevant and that you’re meeting the needs of the population that you’re trying to serve.

Galen Koch: [00:14:23] Yeah, that’s great. This question you may have answered, but I like the wording of it. It’s a Rachelle question. What did the Land Trust do during your time in leadership that brought value to the community that it serves? And another way to think about that, too, is what the value of conserved land is.

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:14:55] For me, I feel like, what the – can you ask the question again? Sorry.

Galen Koch: [00:15:03] How did the Land Trust, in your time in leadership or just in general, bring value? What value does it bring to the community?

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:15:12] The value that the Land trust brings, in my estimation, is really listening to the community about what is important and responding to those needs. That has shown up in different ways. It has shown up in conserving land that is closer to urban areas so that people have easier access to it. It has been the Sebago to the Sea trail, which is really about connectivity and having the ability to go out on properties that connect between communities. It’s also looking to conserve land that is closer to schools so that you’re providing outdoor educational opportunities that are in proximity to schools. The values are manyfold, and it’s really a matter of looking at – well, really, it’s a matter of listening. It’s listening to what the community has identified as something that is important to them. Going back to applying the equity lens and not just listening to privileged white people who have historically had access to conserved land, one of the things that has come up is that it’s not just about trails that are hard to navigate and are grueling to get through. It’s more about providing these family-friendly trails with areas for gatherings so that folks can engage with nature in ways that are meaningful and relevant to them.

Galen Koch: [00:17:18] That makes a lot of sense, even insofar as Mill Brook fits into that. What motivates you to keep working at it?

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:17:33] What motivates me to stay involved is my children. I mean, the reality is that if we can provide for the future – as I stated before, I’ve been working in the environmental field for a long time, and a large section of that work was on the restoration end of things. I just recognize the privilege that I hold as a white middle-class woman here in Maine and someone who has always had access to nature. I want to ensure that that access is there for everyone moving forward. Of course, the original stewards of the land for time immemorial were the Wabanaki and Abenaki tribes here in Maine. We have a responsibility to ensure that we are providing access to folks whose land we are now taking care of.

Galen Koch: [00:18:50] Do you have – you may have already said it – a proudest moment?

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:19:01] I haven’t said it, and I know that I had this question ahead of time, and I was struggling with this. I think for me, the proudest moments are, again, just those things that don’t stand out as big fireworks but the incremental progress that we’ve made over time. The reality of how this work happens is that it is kind of slow but sure and then all at once. The Lowell Preserve, the huge success that we’ve just had with our partnership with the town of Windham, is a real demonstration of that incremental progress over time. Now we’re going to have this preserve that is as big as a state park in our region, and how awesome is that? While it’s very easy and that’s very tangible, and you can see that, that would not have been possible without all of those incremental steps that we’ve made over the last ten years, over the last thirty years. I’ve only been involved for ten years but over the last thirty years.

Galen Koch: [00:20:26] It’s a very, very big moment. You have an environmental background professionally, too, so I’m just curious– and it wasn’t on the prepared list, so forgive me – if you feel like there are tangible ways that this kind of conservation is helping the environment. Have you seen progress in that way in these towns?

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:21:01] Yes. What I would say in terms of that is when you invite towns to step up and be part of the process in creating these kinds of spaces for the people who live in their towns, it just unlocks a whole lot of potential for taking care of the environment. Because the reality is that access to nature really should be a human right. The other benefit in terms of nature is the water quality benefit. When we look at our landscape and identify what areas are really critical for us to take care of, we’re not only taking care of that land, but we’re taking care of the water. Every piece of land is part of a watershed, and clean water is something that is so important to all of us. I have seen the way that the municipalities in this area have really stepped up, and that has come from Presumpscot Regional Land Trust building relationships with these municipalities and really inviting them to be part of this really awesome work that benefits all of us.

Galen Koch: [00:22:47] Yeah, that’s great. It’s like a domino effect. Are there stories that you haven’t shared about the history of the Land Trust that you think are important for me or for anyone listening to know?

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:23:05] I think the story is all about people. The person who comes to mind for me is Fred Dillon, who was an instrumental board member of the Presumpscot River Watch Group and then served on the Presumpscot Regional Land Trust when we merged. The joke used to always be with the River Watch Group that we were hanging by a Fred because Fred was just an absolute dynamo when it came to all of the intricate details that were necessary to keep the water quality monitoring program going. Fred is emblematic of the many people who have stepped up and been the glue that has kept this work going through the years.

Galen Koch: [00:23:58] Yeah, it sounds like the whole story is really about people and the contributions that they have made.

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:24:06] Definitely, yeah.

Galen Koch: [00:24:08] Are there any final thoughts or stories that are stirred from talking about this?

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:24:15] I’m just so proud. It’s really heartening to think about the impact of this work and how much has been accomplished. I think the biggest thing that has been stirred in me is just a sense of pride.

Galen Koch: [00:24:35] Yeah, it’s pretty amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your perspectives and parts of the story.

Tamara Lee Pinard: [00:24:42] Excellent. Thank you.

Galen Koch: [00:24:43] That’s great. Yeah.