Conservation Easements in Belknap County: The Belknap Range Conservation Coalition

A named coalition, not a generic land-trust presence

The Belknap Range Conservation Coalition (BRCC) began meeting in 2006 and formally incorporated as a New Hampshire nonprofit in 2008, bringing together the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests (SPNHF), the Lakes Region Conservation Trust (LRCT), the towns of Alton and Gilford, and other partners around a single goal: conserving the largely unfragmented forestland of the Belknap Mountain Range south and west of Lake Winnipesaukee. This is a genuinely different fact pattern from "a statewide land trust happens to hold some acreage here" -- it is a standing, county-specific coalition with an eighteen-year track record and a running acreage count, roughly 3,800 acres conserved in the range since the coalition's founding.

The Mt. Major campaign: 980 acres, completed 2016

The coalition's highest-profile project protected Mt. Major and adjoining parcels of the range -- 980 acres in total, purchased and permanently conserved through a multi-year fundraising campaign that closed in April 2016. More than 1,800 individual donors, along with foundations, grant-making organizations, and direct contributions from the towns of Alton and Gilford themselves, raised roughly $1.8 million to complete the purchase. Mt. Major is a well-known regional hiking destination southwest of Lake Winnipesaukee; the 2016 campaign is the reason the mountain and the land around it are permanently off the private market rather than a scenic backdrop that could someday be subdivided.

The Mitchell family easements: 664 acres linking an 8,898-acre unfragmented block

A separate, more recent project illustrates how these easements compound rather than sit in isolation: the Mitchell family placed two conservation easements totaling 664 contiguous acres across Gilmanton and Gilford. Because those acres connected to other already-protected abutting parcels, the result was a single unfragmented block of 8,898 protected acres -- not 664 acres of new protection viewed in isolation, but a much larger contiguous conservation footprint created by linking previously separate easements and reservations together. For a parcel anywhere near this block, that means the realistic footprint of adjoining conserved (and therefore non-developable) land is often larger than a single easement's own recorded acreage would suggest.

A third component, at the range's southern end in Alton, added 482 acres adjacent to the existing 457-acre Morse Preserve, creating a 1,250-acre conserved block there -- following an earlier, separately reported 431-acre gift from the Morse family to the Forest Society. Together, these three projects (Mt. Major, the Mitchell easements, and the Alton/Morse Preserve expansion) are the concrete, named components behind the range's roughly 3,800-acre conservation total -- not a single easement, but an accumulating, multi-decade pattern across several of the county's towns.

What this means for a parcel near the Belknap Range

1. Before assuming a wooded or mountainous-looking parcel in Alton, Gilford, Gilmanton, or Belmont is fully private and developable, check its boundary against BRCC's, SPNHF's, and LRCT's mapped conservation holdings -- the unfragmented block around the Mitchell easements alone covers 8,898 acres, a large enough footprint that abutting parcels are common.
2. A parcel that directly abuts one of these blocks may carry different practical development pressure and resale character than one that does not -- permanently conserved abutting land forecloses future subdivision or development next door, which cuts both ways for a buyer depending on what they want from the property.
3. Contact the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests or the Lakes Region Conservation Trust directly for current parcel-level easement maps rather than relying on this summary's acreage figures for a specific transaction -- both organizations continue to add to the range's protected total.
4. This is a private, voluntary conservation-easement pattern, not a county or town zoning restriction -- confirm the specific municipality's own zoning separately, since a conservation easement and a zoning designation are independent legal mechanisms that can each affect the same parcel.