Seven years after it was first proposed, a project meant to improve the water quality and ecosystem at the Sheriff’s Meadow Roth Woodlands has yet to get underway.

Rapidly, at a pace of 10 feet per day, an infection of southern pine beetle is spreading in the pitch pine forest at Sheriff’s Meadow’s Phillips Preserve near Lake Tashmoo.

Beech leaf disease has made its way to the Island and its devastation to the Vineyard's abundant beech tree population is starting to show.

The Vineyard Golf Club completed its purchase this week of four lots owned by the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation in the old Vineyard Acres II subdivision off the West Tisbury Road in Edgartown.

The four lots include four acres of land and were sold to the golf club by the conservation group for $310,000. Of that, $10,000 was paid to the foundation as an option at the time of the sale agreement and was used to cover legal expenses associated with the sale.

Two Boston area businessmen and a Mississippi real estate developer have announced plans to build a private golf club on the former Vineyard Acres II property off the West Tisbury Road in Edgartown.

The would-be developers are Jay Swanson of Medfield, Owen Larkin of Boston and William Vandevender of Jackson, Miss. Their partnership is called Swanson Ventures L.L.C.

As proposals for golf courses begin to pile up on the Island, the Sheriff's Meadow Foundation released a white paper last week that among other things explains the reasoning behind a decision to oppose a golf course development on the MacKenty land in Edgartown, but not oppose a similar proposal for the Vineyard Acres II subdivision.

"A golf course at Vineyard Acres II — especially the right kind of course — would have far less environmental and ecological impact than the 148 houses that are allowed under the subdivision plan," the paper states in part.

After nearly 40 years at the Wakeman Conservation Center, the nonprofit is initiating plans to relocate to a Campbell Road property in West Tisbury.

The 336-acre Aquinnah property composed of land from the former Red Gate Farm will not open to the public as planned this summer, after a longer-than-expected period of state review.

A new effort to understand how land management across the Vineyard can help fight climate change is hoped to serve as a model for other communities looking for ways to battle global warming.

A proposed affordable housing complex in Oak Bluffs has drawn strong opposition from nearby residents and a number of objections from members of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.