80 Acres Protected in Weybridge

Weybridge -- The Gibb family's deep commitment to conservation has spanned several generations. With the conservation of 80 acres of land alongside Snake Mountain this November, the family completed the final step in a conservation effort that began nearly 25 years ago, the Vermont Land Trust announced today.

The family, now working through a Trust, has conserved the majority of the original Weybridge farm and forestland owned by Arthur and Barbara Gibb. The Gibbs purchased the farm in 1951, when Art left New York City and a banking career behind.

Art Gibb, known as the father of Act 250, was devoted to the protection of Vermont's environment as well as the wellbeing of all Vermonters. He entered politics in 1962 with his election to the statehouse and then as a senator in 1971, where he served until 1987.

While in the House, he chaired the Natural Resources Committee in the years it banned billboards and enacted a bottle recycling law, before being appointed Chair of Governor Davis's Commission on Environmental Control. As a result of the Commission's work, the Vermont Legislature enacted Act 250, Vermont's pioneering land-use legislation.

After years of working to strengthen Vermont's environmental and land use policies, Art and Barbara began implementing a plan to protect their own farm. In 1988, the Gibbs donated 113 acres of forestland to the Vermont Land Trust. The land trust then conveyed the land to the Vermont Department of Fish & Wildlife, which added the land to the Snake Mountain Wildlife Management Area.

Five years later, Art and Barbara donated a conservation easement on 171 acres of their farm to the Vermont Land Trust. The land has high quality agricultural soils and nearly a mile of frontage on the Lemon Fair River.

Be it by nature or nurture, Art has passed his commitment to the careful stewardship of the land onto the next generations. Several years after Art's death in 2005, the Trustees of the Gibb Family Trust conveyed 35 acres of conserved land to the Vermont Department of Fish & Wildlife, which was then added to the Lemon Fair Wildlife Management Area.

And finally, to complete the Gibb family conservation legacy, the Family Trust—comprising Art and Barbara's children and grandchildren— generously donated a conservation easement on an additional 80 acres to the Vermont Land Trust before they sold the land to new owners.

"Our parents began their conservation efforts in the Lemon Fair Valley and Otter Creek watershed several decades ago," said Henry Gibb, Art and Barbara's son. "We are delighted with the hard work which so many people have offered to help affirm our family's legacy. The Gibb family has been fortunate to work with Vermont Land Trust and with Mr. Mellgard, the new owner of this property along Snake Mountain."

The newly conserved land forms a connection between the Snake Mountain and Lemon Fair Wildlife Management Areas. The land includes agricultural land, forestland abutting the Snake Mountain Wildlife Management Area, and over a mile of tributaries to the Lemon Fair River.

"The Gibb family has been planting trees to buffer the streams flowing off of Snake Mountain down to the Lemon Fair River," said Bob Heiser of the Vermont Land Trust. "Their recent gift has solidified the connection between those important resources."