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.
When it comes to climate change, coastal habitats are among the most vulnerable. Perhaps that’s why there was a full house at the Vineyard Conservation Society’s annual meeting Tuesday evening for a presentation on climate change habitat impacts. That and the fact that the Vineyard Conservation Society works hard to educate the Island community about climate change.
Ponds in Peril, a forum to follow last summer’s successful event sponsored by the Vineyard Conservation Society, will be held on Wednesday, July 21 starting at 7 p.m. at the Sailing Camp in Oak Bluffs. The featured speaker will be Michael D. Giggey, a principal at Wright-Pierce Engineering. Mike will address water quality and wastewater management and infrastructure issues associated with growth and development on the Vineyard, presenting case studies of Sengekontacket Pond, Lagoon Pond and Lake Tashmoo.
Last summer the Vineyard Conservation Society succeeded in convincing Islanders that their ponds were indeed in peril. At this year’s Ponds in Peril forum, Islanders learned what they could do about it.
The 47th annual meeting of the board and membership of the Vineyard Conservation Society (VCS) will take place at the Wakeman Conservation Center in Tisbury on Tuesday, June 26, at 5 p.m. This year’s meeting will feature a presentation by landscape designer and native plant specialist Kristin Henricksen.
The Vineyard Conservation Society is hosting a winter walk on Sunday, Jan. 8, from 1 to 3 p.m. and they are looking for otters. The walk will be led by wildlife biologists Luanne Johnson and Liz Baldwin along the protected lands around the Wakeman Conservation Center, starting at the Cranberry Acres bogs and continuing to the Hoft Farm. The plan is to explore the trails, fields, and bogs of this area while searching for otter tracks and learning about how they perceive the landscape.
