What is the Green Corridor?
The Green Corridor is Aspetuck Land Trust’s vital initiative to link the green spaces within developed residential and urban to the protected natural areas we steward. This transforms many isolated fragments of habitat into a vast, and unified natural area, which has a much greater capacity to support the trees, plants, birds, butterflies, and wildlife we love and need. The connectivity of green spaces supports wildlife and pollinator populations, protects water resources, improves air quality, and provides more opportunities for outdoor recreation. We are aiming to connect green spaces that Aspetuck Land Trust stewards with homeowners’ backyards.
What We Are Doing
Aspetuck Land Trust is creating a greener, more sustainable world by connecting Southern Connecticut’s 1000’s of acres of protected preserves with 1000’s of biodiverse backyards into a thriving greenway called the Green Corridor.
We have developed a detailed plan for a 40,000-acre Green Corridor to safeguard land, wildlife and water resources and lessen the climate crisis. Today, the Green Corridor extends through Fairfield, Westport, Weston, Easton, Wilton, Redding, Monroe, and Bridgeport.
Criteria we used to geolocate the Green Corridor:
Maintain and preserve habitats along important riparian corridors (Saugatuck and Mill Rivers and Sasco Brook).
Link existing Aspetuck Land Trust properties and other protected open spaces.
Link habitats of known rare flora and fauna and other species of conservation concern to avoid and mitigate the effects of habitat fragmentation.
Protect properties with important farmland soils.
The Green Corridor has 2 major components:
Land Protection: Conserving and preserving undeveloped strategically located land parcels in the region by either purchasing them or receiving them as donations. Through our strategic conservation mapping we have identified 42 properties for protection totaling 805 acres. In addition, we are working to protect a 705-acre forest reserve on the Weston Wilton border.
Land Stewardship: We help homeowners see their yards as living stepping stones that provide food for wildlife like butterflies and bees making their way through the landscape. By November 2021, more than 820 households have signed the Green Corridor Pledge promising to reduce the size of their lawns by planting native species and reducing their use of pesticides. We have recruited a group of landscapers dedicated to these principles.
Everyone can make a difference. We can save the planet one acre – or one yard – at a time.
What You Can Do
Add Your Yard to the Green Corridor
We ask homeowners to take the Green Corridor Pledge which asks you to:
Plant native Plants
Native plants are from the area that are a critical part of the local wildlife and insects' natural diet and life cycles.
Rethink your lawn
Reduce the size of your lawn and replace it with native plants and watch the birds and butterflies return!
Avoid pesticides
Pesticides and herbicides kill beneficial insects which are a crucial part of the ecosystem, and can harm human and pet health.
