Haeuser

The new president and vice president of the South Portland Land Trust’s board of directors are looking to focus on educational programs, smaller conservation projects and building upon their relationship with the city.

Alex Redfield stepped down as president this spring.

“Welcoming a new generation of board members to the land trust and building systems for consistent membership engagement stand out as two of the most notable developments for SPLT since I joined the board,” Redfield said in a press release last week. “With a new cohort of engaged residents, I’m excited that SPLT is continuing to clarify how conservation and public lands need to be centered in the next stage of our city’s development.”

Tex Haeuser, South Portland’s former longtime city planner and land trust board member for over three years, is taking over Redfield’s role while Karen Talentino, who has been a board member for two years, will serve as vice president and treasurer.

Talentino is a trained biologist and when she retired and moved to Maine in 2022, she said the land trust seemed like a perfect fit.

“I really wanted to try to have an impact on my community,” Talentino said. “A nonprofit like the land trust, with such a great mission, can have a significant impact on the community.”

Haeuser and Talentino are looking to prioritize smaller conservation projects, which have become a trend in other communities in the country with lots of developed land.

“More and more communities are realizing that as fewer large open spaces are available for protection, because there are so many being developed, we need to look to smaller pieces,” Talentino said.

“It may be that some landowner gets to a point where they feel it’s time to do something different with their land and they want to protect the property,” Haeuser said as one example.

Haeuser said working closer with the city is another priority and he’s able to do that as the land trust’s representative on South Portland’s Open Space Acquisition Committee.

“Part of our goal is to assist the city in protecting open spaces and then see if there’s a particular role for the land trust to play,” Haeuser said. “We’d like to help.”

Providing educational opportunities is a major focus of Talentino’s and is another way they are collaborating with the city. This fall and winter, they’ll be hosting trail walks in partnership with the parks and recreation department.

“Each of those walks will be led by different specialists; a geologist, hydrologist, historian, conservationist,” Talentino explained. “You take the same trail but look at it through someone else’s eyes and get a different perspective on things.”

While they have different titles, the two are working as a tandem, Haeuser said.

“We’re almost like co-presidents, really,” he said. “She and I work very closely.”

For more information on the South Portland Land Trust, go to southportlandlandtrust.org.