Internship
Land Stewardship
Organization
Thousand Islands Land Trust
P.O. Box 238
135 John Street
Clayton, NY 13624
About the Organization
The Thousand Islands Land Trust is in Clayton, New York. TILT works to conserve the natural beauty, diverse wildlife habitats, water quality and outdoor recreation opportunities of the Thousand Islands region, for present and future generations. Since 1985 TILT has worked with landowners and communities to conserve the natural beauty of the region through land acquisitions, conservation easements, and by creating accessible public spaces for all to enjoy.
TILT offers many programs to the community. One program is TILTreks. These include birding, hiking, kayaking, history outings, as well as Stewardship Days and other volunteer events. They also offer Kids Treks featuring great kid-oriented activities like “Ichthyologist for a Day” when they visit Thousand Islands Biological Station on Governor’s Island and learn what it is like to be a real scientist. They also offer TILT Kids Day Camp. Camps have included Invasive Inspectors, Let’s Migrate, and Nature Rocks! Another program that TILT offers is the Zenda Community Garden where they provide space for local community members to grow fresh, locally produced fruits and vegetables.
Internship Duties
Land Stewards work on grassland and habitat management and restoration, trail construction and maintenance. They monitor TILT’s Conservation Easement lands, complete trail clearing and marking, combat invasive species, enhance wildlife and bird habitats, and ensure compliance with Conservation Easement terms. The internship is paid, and the hours are 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Summary
Throughout the summer I worked as a Land Steward for Thousand Islands Land Trust. We had set some goals throughout the summer. Some of the goals were to get all the old equipment running, create an easier way to keep the machine shop organized, maintain all the trails, enhance wildlife and bird habitats, and save trees on the Zenda Farm. Every week we were scheduled one day to maintain all the TILT preserve trails. There were four Land Stewards so we would split up in groups of two and divide the workload in half. This helped me with time management and being able to get all the preserves done in one day so that we didn’t have to take away time from our next day of work. I learned that communication skills are the most important part of the job. Good communication between management and coworkers is important. I also learned that keeping positive public connections makes things happen. This experience helped me understand that habitat restoration means not just protecting land but managing it. It also taught me that human intervention can help bring ecosystems back into balance. This experience showed me the importance of planning, communication, and problem-solving. I will use the skills I gained from this internship in my future career.
Supervisor: Ken Nims, Stewardship Director