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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
At 8:30 p.m. tomorrow, the Island will go dark. Lights will be turned off, the ambient hum of computers will go silent. Candles will be lit, and people will sit back to enjoy the blaze from the fireplace. For one hour, for the third year in a row, the Vineyard will join with some 800 cities across the globe in flipping the switch, suspending, if only for a short time, our ever-growing energy use.
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.”
The 45th annual meeting of the board and membership of the Vineyard Conservation Society will take place at the Wakeman Conservation Center on Lambert’s Cove Road in Vineyard Haven on Tuesday evening, June 29. The meeting is free and the public is welcome, starting with a light supper from 5 to 6 p.m. The business portion of the meeting will begin at 6 p.m., followed at 6:30 p.m. with a presentation by Tim Simmons, restoration ecologist with the Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program.
