How the Fuller family honored their late nephew’s legacy with a 35-acre gift

YORK, Maine — Lafcadio Cortesi was a world-renowned conservationist who helped protect forests as far as Canada, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

The elders of the Fuller family, his aunts and uncles, felt it was fitting to commemorate his unexpected death last year with a donation of 35 acres to the York Land Trust for conservation.

“He was a mover and a shaker,” said Martha Fuller Clark, his aunt, a York native and a longtime New Hampshire state senator from Portsmouth. “He was saving forests all over the world.”

Lafcadio’s Woods Preserve is now open on Bartlett Road with a new sign at its trail’s entrance sharing details of the history of Cortesi’s life. The York Land Trust held its grand opening celebration of the woods Oct. 22. Now the oak-pine forest is open with trails for hiking, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, nature study, mountain biking, dog walking and hunting.

The Fuller family had already been gifting its property for conservation purposes for the last 30 years when Cortesi died suddenly at age 60.

Emily Hawkins, Clark’s sister and Cortesi’s other aunt, said it seemed natural to donate a portion of the family’s conservation land to the York Land Trust in his name given his work combatting global deforestation.

“The family could all come together around this idea,” Hawkins said. “That this 35 acres should be preserved in his memory.”

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Lafcadio Cortesi: A life dedicated to saving the world’s forests

Cortesi was born in Portsmouth in 1961 and named for the writer Lafcadio Hearn. His obituary states that his name “proved prophetic,” as he would travel the world much like the author.

Cortesi traveled early in life, at age 16 flying alone to Kathmandu and joining a team studying temple monkeys, his obituary states. After college, he raised a family while working in conservation in the wider Pacific.

He started living in Indonesia with volunteers in 1985 working on community development. Two years later, he was joining the network of environmentalists known as Greenpeace. He led efforts to support local communities in their struggle to end deforestation in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

His work in the Pacific also included defending fisheries and coral reefs, and he eventually became director of Asia programs at the Rainforest Action Network, according to his obituary. It said he also had an important influence on companies that derived raw materials from Canadian forests.

“He was quite a remarkable man,” Hawkins said.

Clark said she knew Cortesi well and would see him when he visited from where he was living in Berkeley, California.

She said it was shocking to learn of his death in March of last year.

“He just died,” she said. “He just laid down one day, one night, went to sleep and didn’t wake up.”

Standing at the entrance of the trail that leads into the forest dedicated to Cortesi, Clark looked at the sign with his picture and a brief description of his life’s work.

“Connecting communities through the power of nature was both his livelihood and his calling,” the sign reads. “These woods are a memorial to his hard work and a tribute to his many achievements around the world.”

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Fuller family dedicated to conservation

The 35 acres donated to the York Land Trust in Cortesi’s name made up the last of the land the Fullers had set aside for conservation. They started with 330 acres that accrued over time going back to 1899 when Owen Aldis bought 64 acres along the York River. He sold 10 acres, and then kept the rest, according to a history provided by Hawkins. He later purchased Rams Head Farm as well, adding up to a total of 130 acres of land.

The swath of land changed hands over the years until it was bought in 1944 by Henry and Marion T. Fuller, who later became Maine legislator and environmentalist Marion Fuller Brown. From there, the family added land until they reached a total of 330 acres.

Hawkins said her family began doing conservation work with their hundreds of acres in the 1990s. When Brown died in 2011, Hawkins, her daughter, said it was her wish that the west side of Bartlett Road be conserved. That led to the Fuller Forest Preserve being established.

When the family decided the last 35 acres across the street from the Fuller Forest Preserve should go to Cortesi, Clark said it made sense to work with the York Land Trust. Her mother, also Brown, was one of the founders of the trust, she said, so it was “the obvious organization” to go with.

Hawkins said the donation marks the “capstone” for her family’s years of work preserving acres of natural forest for years to come.

“It’s important to me,” Hawkins said. “We have conserved and preserved a 19th-century landscape.”

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This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Lafcadio’s Woods: Fuller family gifts 35 acres to York Land Trust