HCT To Provide Access To Hawksnest

 
 EAST HARWICH – The Harwich Conservation Trust is planning to purchase a 2.3-acre parcel from St. Peter’s Lutheran Church that would serve as a trailhead and parking area for people exploring Hawksnest State Park and the town’s sparsely developed Six Ponds Special District.
The trust announced its plans for a $400,000 campaign to purchase the property, which has 300 feet of frontage on Round Cove Road to the west side of Route 137, after receiving a $50,000 grant from the Cape Cod Foundation’s Priscilla Alden Sears Memorial Fund. The fund is used for preservation of open space and wildlife habitats and to provide care for injured or displaced animals and birds.
The property is proposed to be used as a trailhead for access to the extensive network of trails in Hawksnest State Park and the town's Six Ponds Special District. The trust has labelled the undertaking the Six Ponds-Hawksnest Woods Project.
The Six Ponds Special District is a large and ecologically significant watershed area south of Route 6 that contributes groundwater to six kettle ponds as well as the town’s water supply wells serving thousands of households. The 2.3-acre parcel is also within the Pleasant Bay watershed, according to the trust’s announcement. 
Proceeds from the sale of the land will help the church offset its recent purchase of a parsonage in Brewster to provide housing for the pastor and his family, said church member and former Harwich Town Administrator James Merriam.
“We received several bids to purchase the land from builders," said Merriam. "However, the bid from the Harwich Conservation Trust aligned perfectly with our congregation’s values of land preservation and public access to open space. Thus, the church council’s unanimous vote was to sell for a conservation future and the congregation feels blessed by this partnership.”
The church’s pastor, Rev. Christephor Gilbert, sees the partnership with HCT as a way to celebrate the relationship between religion and nature, a concept known as eco-theology, according to the announcement.
“Here was evidence of an active-practical spirituality that affirmed the Christian call to love all our neighbors — including land, animal, water, sky — and not just a sales agreement," Gilbert said. "This opportunity invites a deepened relationship to the trust and the land, and I look forward to the fruits of this partnership.”
At 236 acres, Hawksnest State Park makes up a significant portion of the Six Ponds Special District. In 1971 the state Department of Natural Resources purchased 218 acres with a first-phase goal of creating more than 160 campsites at Hawksnest as well as two swimming beaches, parking lots and a recreation hall. A second phase called for the purchase of 482 acres with 406 campsites and a beach for 500 people.
The state’s campground plans never came to fruition, leaving the park in a more natural state with scenic woodland trails and pristine ponds. HCT’s purchase of the 2.3-acre parcel will make it possible to reach the trails through a future parking area and trailhead, according to HCT Executive Director Michael Lach.
According to the state’s description of Hawksnest, the park today “is the core of a broad, multi-partner conservation landscape that protects globally rare coastal plain pondshores and other natural resources. Hawksnest’s most prominent features are its ponds, all of which are located in the northern half of the park.”
The trust has begun a $400,000 fundraising campaign which includes the $330,000 cost of the property and the cost of creating a new trailhead and parking gateway to the adjacent 400-acre conservation area, which includes Hawksnest State Park as well as town conservation land and HCT protected lands.
To allow Harwich Conservation Trust the time needed to raise funds for the project, the parcel was acquired by an interim buyer, the Compact of Cape Cod Conservation Trusts, Inc. In this buy-and-hold capacity, the Compact purchased the property from St. Peter’s Lutheran Church. The trust has until December to raise the funds to purchase the land.
"Harwich Conservation Trust is grateful to the Cape Cod Foundation for their generous support to launch this important land-saving effort that will yield so many community benefits," said Lach.  "And we are thankful to everyone at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church for the opportunity to become the next stewards of this beautiful land. There's still a lot of fundraising to do and we hope the community will rally behind us. We are excited about the potential for creating future walking access to the miles of trails in the Six Ponds District.