The Finger Lakes Land Trust was founded in 1989 to preserve and protect the character of the land in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. Since then, the land trust has protected over 13,000 acres of wetlands, forests, grassland, and gorges. This is accomplished by the creation of nature preserves that are open to the public and the use of conservation easements (voluntary agreement of private land to be protected from development in perpetuity). 

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While pursuing my interest in land conservation and management, I held an internship position at the Finger Lakes Land Trust during the summer of 2013. In addition to performing administrative tasks such as compiling mailings, handling monetary donations, and organizing the media archives, I helped to organize a regional event called 'Celebrate the Lake'. For this event to run smoothly, I was responsible for: inviting and confirming food vendors, local recreation groups, and environmental education centers, arranging the setup of the location, and distributing promotional materials to the Ithaca area. 



I also had the opportunity to do some trail and maintenance work at a few of the nature preserves. I helped manage pale swallow wort, an invasive species, at the Lindsay Parsons Biodiversity Preserve. I also began updating an outdated management plan for one of the preserves before ending my internship in September 2012.