Green Valley Institute (GVI)
The Green Valley Institute (GVI)
is a non-regulatory organization dedicated to maintaining and improving the environmental
quality of Connecticut’s Quinebaug-Shetucket Heritage
Corridor
area. The goal of the Green Valley Institute is
to broaden the base of information from which local land
use and natural resource use decisions are made, as well
as increasing local ability to protect and manage natural
resources, notably water resources.
With the help of supporting organizations,
including
U.Mass
and
U.Conn
Cooperative Extension, The Nature Conservancy and the Windham Region
Council of Governments, GVI has led many successful projects:
Development
of a research-based, computerized method for overlaying
multiple resource
maps to prioritize natural resource
and improve conservation planning.
Education
and training of 1,269 Corridor community leaders and landowners
through fifty-nine GVI short courses,
workshops, retreats and training sessions.
Current
development of a Corridor-wide greenways
and blueways map,
which will improve and update existing conservation
and recreation data.
In
partnership with the Connecticut Department of Environmental
Protection and the Connecticut Science Center, the development
of an eco-region map as a tool for conservation planning.
Through Green Valley Institute Leadership,
increasing numbers of Corridor communities are….
Developing new Conservation Subdivision Regulations
Developing Fee-in-Lieu of Open Space Subdivision Regulations
Amending their community design guidelines
Incorporating
new land use economics goals into their Plans
of Conservation and Development
Increasing
their volunteer base through educational programming provided
by GVI
Utilizing educational data to develop municipal conservation
priorities
Forming Conservation Commissions to develop and maintain
natural
resource inventories to improve the knowledge base
from which planning and subdivision review decisions are
made
Protecting
family farms and forests through workshops provided by GVI