Thimble Farm Tour Begins Guided Farmland Walks

The Vineyard Conservation Society Winter Walks Program will feature a guided walk at Thimble Farm in Tisbury on Sunday, Jan. 13 at 1:30 pm. Andrew Woodruff, an Island farmer with 25 years’ experience, will lead the walk.

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Winter Walking with the Conservation Society

The Vineyard Conservation Society is celebrating over 25 years of leading free winter walks for the community with a walk in East Chop on Nov. 8 at 1 p.m.

Liz Durkee and David Grunden will lead and look at erosion and the possible impacts on fisheries. Walkers will then have the opportunity to enter the light house and get a view from the top. Please park at the East Chop Beach Club parking lot.

As always, cider and cookies will be served. All VCS walks are family friendly.

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Gazette Chronicle: The Purloined Pastry

Tom Rush, a folk musician whom Vineyarders have watched grow up, used to visit when he was just a teenage troubadour.

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Saturday to-Do List: Don Gloves, Roll Up Sleeves, Go to Beach for Earth Day Event
Cooper Davis

Flotsam and jetsam have drifted onto Island shores for centuries, although the volume and toxicity of beach trash has increased dramatically during modern times.

Today plastic trash is a blot on beaches, but thankfully it can be reduced simply by rolling up your sleeves and getting to work.

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Earth Day Volunteers Scour Beaches

The Vineyard Conservation Society’s Earth Day Beach Clean-Up saw volunteers taking to beaches around the Island last Saturday, April 18. Among the many organizations to dedicate their afternoon to the effort was the Martha’s Vineyard Surfcasters Association. The association put their work in on the familiar strand of South Beach, hauling refuse of all shapes, sizes and material out of the sands and away to a proper disposal.

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Vineyard Conservation Society Meets Tuesday

This Tuesday, June 30, the Vineyard Conservation Society’s annual meeting will be held at the Wakeman Conservation Center off Lambert’s Cove Road in Vineyard Haven at 5:30 p.m. The society will have an opportunity to preview the New Views of Ocean Life Census of Marine Life program, a highly ambitious endeavour that began in 2000 and involves thousands of scientists from more than 80 nations.

A light dinner will be served. For details, call 508-693-9588.

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New on the VCS Board

New on the VCS Board

The Vineyard Conservation Society, at its annual meeting on June 29, voted to approve the nomination of four new directors: former Martha’s Vineyard Commissioner Mimi Davisson; Richard Toole, who currently serves on the Oak Bluffs conservation commission and the zoning board of appeals; marketing and nonprofit management consultant Alan Ganapol; and Julie Anne McNary, professional fundraiser.

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Into the Wilds of Chappy With Conservation Society

It’s been raining for like 40 days and 40 nights. But the sun is bound to come out sometime and when it does, time to head outdoors. Looking for a little hand-holding, though, to bring you back to the wild? Then you’re in luck. On Sunday, Nov. 14 the Vineyard Conservation Society is leading a walk out to Norton Point Beach on Chappy.

Anyone interested should meet at the Chappy Ferry parking lot at 12:45 p.m. If already on Chappy, meet at the Wasque TTOR gatehouse at 1 p.m.

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Conservation is Truly Plan of Least Impact
Brendan O'Neill

Often lost in the debate about the pros and cons of developing new sources of energy production is the critical importance of conserving our existing energy reserves by promoting conservation and altering personal consumption habits. Energy conservation — increasing the efficiency of energy use to produce more output for the same consumption — must be part of the conversation if we are to overcome the unprecedented energy challenges we face globally and locally.

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Conserving Lands Great and Small
Geraldine Brooks

Lloyd Raleigh is bent double , trying to negotiate his way through a dense thicket of catbriar in the moist wetands of Brookside Farm. As thorns entangle his jacket, a soup of leaf mold and sphagnum moss sucks his boots deeper into the mud.

“I kind of like this spot,” he says. “It tells us a lot about the land.”

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