The Making of a Conservationist: Leon Levy Environmental Symposium, Sunday, Mar 6, Bedford

Author Alex Shoumatoff, right, will speak at the third annual Leon Levy Environmental Symposium, Sunday, March 6, in Bedford Village. He is shown here with a Siberian berry picker he met while researching a story for Vanity Fair magazine.

The Westchester Land Trust is thrilled to confirm that legendary journalist, travel writer, world explorer, environmental activist — and Bedford native — Alex Shoumatoff will be the featured speaker at WLT’s Leon Levy Environmental Symposium.

The event happens Sunday, March 6th, at 3pm, at the Bedford Village Historical Hall. Admission is free and the symposium is followed by an informal reception.

Shoumatoff is one of the most far-flung of environmental and travel writers. He writes for Vanity Fair, is a former New Yorker staff writer, has authored 10 books, and his website Dispatches From a Vanishing World, dedicated to raising consciousness about disappearing species and cultures, is visited by readers from over 90 countries every month.

A graduate of Rippowam-Cisqua School (and later of Harvard University), Shoumatoff credits his youth in Bedford as the primary force in making him a committed, passionate conservationist.

As a young man, he was curator of the Marsh Sanctuary in Mount Kisco and taught natural history at Rippowam-Cisqua, having inherited a love of the outdoors from his father and brother. Nicholas Shoumatoff Sr. was president of Westmoreland Sanctuary and Bedford Audubon; Nicholas Jr. was curator of the Trailside Museum at Ward Pound Ridge Reservation.

Appropriately, his talk is “Westchester, Bedford and the Making of a Conservationist,” and will focus on how his youth here led to his career as a writer and activist on environmental issues.

Seating is limited so please RSVP to grace@Westchesterlandtrust.org or RSVP on Facebook or Eventbrite


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New York Botanical Gardens: Seminar: An Approach to Creative Design, Friday, Feb 25

Seminar: Site Character: An Approach to Creative Design

with Landscape Designer Duncan Brine

Friday, February 25, 10am - 12pm

For more on this seminar go to gardenlarge.com

If you’re able to get to this class, consider following it with lunch on Arthur Ave. or a stroll through the garden (weather permitting).
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Gasland Film Screening, Tuesday, Feb 8, 9:30AM, Bedford, NY

GASLAND: An Award-winning, Oscar-nominated Film about Hydrofracking for Natural Gas
Tuesday, February 8, 9:30am
The Bedford Playhouse
643 Old Post Road, Bedford, New York   

The Rusticus Garden Club will be screening Gasland.  Gasland is a documentary about the process of hyrdaulic fracturing or "hydrofracking" which is used to extract natural gas.  This is a particularly important issue for residents in Westchester and New York state as hydrofracking has been proposed for upstate New York in areas which supply drinking water to NYC and many communities in Westchester.  Governor Patterson signed an Executive Order shortly before he left office which imposes a moratorium until June 2011 on horizontal drilling used in hyrdrofracking, but what happens after June will be critically important to the quality of our water supply and environment.

Q&A to follow: After the film a panel of experts including Paul Gallay, Executive Director of Riverkeeper, Suzannah Glidden (and possibly Dr. Marion Rose) of Croton Watershed Clean Water Coalition, and Cara Lee, Director of the Shawangunk Ridge Program and The Nature Conservancy, will be available for questions after the film.

 RSVP: email Kristina Burbank @ dtburbank@verizon.net

Also see the recent post on Katonah Green about the song "No Frackin' Way" 

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