Received this letter to the editor from Ted Clement, the executive director of Aquidneck Land Trust.

This past 4th of July weekend I had two meaningful experiences that shed more light on the importance of the Aquidneck Land Trust’s (“ALT”) effort to save Wicks Nursery, which was launched on Friday, July 2nd when the six Wicks siblings signed an Option Agreement with ALT that will give our non-profit land trust nine months to raise the necessary monies to purchase a $2 million perpetual Conservation Easement on almost 40 acres of this Portsmouth farm.

On Saturday, July 3rd, I attended the annual Wicks family 4th of July clambake at Wicks Nursery which has been a family tradition for more than thirty years. When I arrived at the clambake, I was taken around and introduced to numerous people from the four generations of Wicks in attendance. People beamed and thanked me when they were told that I was from ALT. They shared stories with me that illustrated how important and intertwined the farm was with the family. One family member has a tattoo of the farm on his arm. I was told that this year’s clambake was especially significant because it marked the end of their final annual clambakes that have occurred the last few years because, before Friday last week, the sale of the farm for development had seemed necessary and imminent.

Then, on Sunday, family, friends and I went to Escobar’s Highland Farm for the annual 4th of July fireworks show. This has been our family tradition for many years: a picnic dinner; embracing Louis and Jane Escobar; hay rides for the kids; barn tours; live country music; fireworks; and lovely farm vistas. The Escobars, ALT and our other critical partners conserved this farm together in 2005.

As I watched “the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,” from the protected meadow at Escobar’s, it was clear that land conservation at its best is more than just protecting important drinking water supplies, prime farmland soils, significant wildlife habitat and sweeping scenic vistas. It is more than protecting our Island home from new residential subdivisions that will put increased demands on our already burdened infrastructure and limited natural resources and further jeopardize our unique economic advantage as a desirable and beautiful place to live, work and visit. Land conservation at its best is also about protecting family traditions, community, portals that allow people to directly commune with nature, and that essence which makes our nation and home so special and worth fighting for.

In 1814, Francis Scott Key wrote the poem In Defense of Fort McHenry that was later turned into our national anthem. Near the end of that poem, Key wrote, “And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave. O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand, Between their loved home and the war’s desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!”

We thank the Wicks, the Escobars and all the other visionary landowners who have given us the opportunity to preserve a piece of our “loved home,” and, by extension, a piece of ourselves.
— Ted Clement
Executive Director, Aquidneck Land Trust

Editorial note: While you're thinking about it, I hope you'll consider visiting the ALT web site to learn more, and if you can, make a donation to this worthwhile effort.