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Introducing RFF Advisory Board Member Keith Ross

The Resources First Foundation Advisory Board is just what it sounds like: It is a group of people who support what RFF is doing, and whom I can call on for advice or help. In this new segment, I will be introducing to you every week a member of Resources First Foundation's Advisory Board.

For this, the inaugural article for this new segment, I am introducing one of our newer Advisory Board Members, Keith Ross.

When did you join the Advisory Board?

I joined the board when [RFF President Amos Eno] asked me to about a year ago.

What is it about Resources First Foundation that made you want to join the team?

I like the broad reach that the organization offers with its websites' work and its focus on conservation of all types.

When did you first gain and interest in conservation?

Working as a forester in Western Massachusetts in the 1970's I had several clients who did not want to sell their land for development, but how could they not when they were only making a fraction of the income from the forest harvesting that they could make from development. I became interested in alternatives and went back to law school, where I did a work study job with the Ottauquechee Regional Land Trust [now the Vermont Land Trust] and became interested in conservation options for forest landowners.

What are some of the most satisfying conservation efforts you are working on, have been a part of, or are most interested in?

By far the most interesting was the Pingree Forest Partnership with the New England Forestry Foundation, where we conserved 762,192 acres in Maine with the first landscape level conservation easement. I continue to work with families who are interested in passing land on to the next generation to continue forest stewardship. This runs from 4 acre parcels in Western Massachusetts to thousands of acres in the Northeast to hundreds of thousands of acres in the Great Lakes and West.

Keith Ross is a Certified Forester and Senior Advisor for LandVest's Consulting Group. Find Keith on PLN.