Overview

Here is an up-close and captivating environmental success story. The author and his wife buy a long-desired home within an extraordinary piece of wild nature only to learn of plans for a gravel mine and concrete plant next door, adjacent to their pristine wetlands. Faithfully relating a fifteen-year story in first person-a case study of sorts, fully documented with letters and memos of the many participants-this is the author's personal narrative of his home and the collective effort to protect his cherished land. Here is his account of glacier-formed eskers, kames and kettles, of diverse woodlands, swamps, alkaline fens and acid bog, of next-door gravel mining applications and recurring environmental reviews, of uncertainty and long struggle, and of diligence, awesome teamwork and phenomenal land deals. Ultimately, this is a story of conservation success, culminating in the establishment and dedication of The Nature Conservancy's magical and treasured O.D. von Engeln Preserve at Malloryville, located in the picturesque Finger Lakes Region of upstate New York.

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9781482049138

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Bob Beck was raised on a dairy farm in Upstate New York, earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University with a focus on evolutionary biology, and completed all but his dissertation towards the Ph.D at Cornell. He has been a teacher of biology, animal behavior, natural history, and general science, having taught at Cornell, Ithaca College and Sarah Lawrence College, as well as for docents' training at the Bronx Zoo and for middle-school students at a Montessori school in Ithaca, New York. Bob was was a curator at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Library of Natural Sounds, and he was a founding board member and the first executive director of the Finger Lakes Land Trust. For his efforts in organizing and leading the defense of Malloryville Bog, he was honored with The Nature Conservancy's Friend of the Land award and a 50th Anniversary Hero award. Adjacent to his home, he volunteers as preserve monitor and leads frequent interpretive field trips at the Nature Conservancy's 308-acre O.D. von Engeln Preserve at Malloryville. In addition, he has served, for many years, on his county and town environmental advisory boards and serves as chair of his town's effort to develop abandoned rail beds as pedestrian-bicycling-commuting off-road trails. And for something completely different, Bob was the founder and owner of a small business devoted to designing and installing custom closet and storage solutions for homeowners.

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