Sisters of the Earth Community

GREEN MOUNTAIN MONASTERY ~ THOMAS BERRY SANCTUARY

Our Conservation Easement

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In alignment with our mission: Honoring Earth as A Single Sacred Community, on December 11, 2020 we placed 135 acres of our land into a Conservation Easement with The Nature Conservancy and the Vt. Housing and Conservation Board.

Due to Covid, we gathered at the lawyers office outside to sign all papers! This legally binding agreement will protect our land, its streams, trees, cedar swamp and wildlife from development in perpetuity. It will also provide a wild life corridor for animals, adding to a 500 acre block of conserved land, as well as opening our trails for public use.

A new type of community, a much larger Earth community, including all the living and non living components of the planet must be brought into being.

Thomas Berry

 Partners in Conservation:

We express our deep gratitude to our current partners in conserving this land, for their generous donations and support for this Sacred Community of Life.

Adrian Dominican Sisters

Mary Alice Dooley

Clive Gray

Presentation Sisters of South America

Roy Anthony Setiawan

Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Sisters of the Good Shepherd

Sisters of St Joseph of Boston

Thomas Berry Foundation

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As chair of the Greensboro Land Trust (GLT), I am delighted that the Green Mountain Monastery (GMM) expressed their desire to conserve 90 percent of their 157-acre property in perpetuity, and asked the GLT for help in realizing this.

As the monastery is bordered on three sides by land conserved with the GLT and the Vermont Land Trust (VLT), realization of the Sisters' goal will create a solid block of a square mile of conserved land in this section of North Greensboro.  It reflects Thomas Berry's spirit of protecting the Earth, and I believe Thomas would have strongly supported the Sisters' initiative an Eco-oic philosophy. All the more appropriate that his grave lies on GMM land, in one of the Meadows that he spoke of as symbolizing Earth.     (Clive Gray)