A popular hiking trail at the Hoft Farm Preserve, the Nature Conservancy’s 92-acre property on Lambert’s Cove Road in West Tisbury, now has a name of its own: Tom Chase Trail, in honor of the man who worked to conserve the farm and hundreds more acres of open space across the Island.

A lifelong Vineyarder from an Oak Bluffs family, Mr. Chase has been a driving force in Island conservation since the 1980s, when he became the Trustees of Reservations’ first regional ecologist here before moving to the Nature Conservancy in 1994.

“He’s been a mentor to so many,” said Karen Lombard, the Nature Conservancy’s director of stewardship and land restoration.

In the 1990s and 2000s, the conservancy was expanding its work to protect and restore natural landscapes on the Vineyard and Nantucket — a mission that resonated with Mr. Chase, whose chief interest was in ecological restoration.

Tom Chase and Rebekah Myers.

Ray Ewing

Tom Chase and Rebekah Myers.

Ray Ewing

“I felt like I had gotten into the Harvard of conservation organizations,” he said this week.

“In those days, the conservancy was very focused on community-based conservation,” Mr. Chase said. “I knew they were deeply invested in research … and all the work that goes into ecological restoration.”

In his 26 years with the Nature Conservancy, Mr. Chase shepherded the protection of some 1,500 acres of Island heathlands, pine barrens, sandplain grasslands and other natural habitats through a series of agreements with landowners.

“The Big Kahuna was a big chunk of Pohogonot,” he said, referring to the 1995 agreement with the Flynn family of Edgartown to sell 830 acres of untouched upland property to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management, which added it to the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest. 

A condition of the sale was that the land would be managed by the Nature Conservancy. Mr. Chase also led the Nature Conservancy to negotiate conservation easements on privately-owned land and to purchase some properties outright, including Hoft Farm in 1997 and, in 2000, 103 acres on Edgartown Great Pond where developers had planned a luxury golf course.

In 2001, the conservancy took part in a five-way, $64 million purchase of the 215-acre, ecologically sensitive Herring Creek Farm in Edgartown, with the FARM Institute and three private buyers. 

“Those were just marvelous days. It was all about land protection and ecological restoration,” Mr. Chase said.

Rebekah Myers, the Nature Conservancy’s stewardship manager for the Vineyard, took a break from repairing a tractor Wednesday to talk about Mr. Chase’s legacy at the organization.

Although she never worked with him directly, Ms. Myers said, his impact is ever-present, both on the land and in the Nature Conservancy’s records.

“You come across these files sometimes that are kind of like story books. You can tell how important those relationships he fostered were, to get to this level of protection and donations,” she told the Gazette.

“He’s smart. He’s strategic. He’s an icon on the Island,” Ms. Myers said.

Now retired from the conservancy, Mr. Chase remains involved in environmental protection as executive director of Village and Wilderness, a nonprofit consultancy he founded to help communities organize local restoration programs.

Adding his name to the Hoft Farm trail has been in the works since Mr. Chase retired five years ago, Ms. Lombard said, but staff turnover and other slowdowns got in the way.

The Tom Chase trail winds through open fields, woods and ponds, with connections to adjoining Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank trails, before circling back to the Hoft Farm barn and parking area.

The Conservancy dedicated the trail in a modest ceremony last month. 

“I’m not much of one for big events, so they honored my wishes and kept it small and it was so touching,” Mr. Chase said.

“It just means a lot to be remembered,” he said. “It’s a deep honor.”