The Land Trust is excited to announce

the 2006 Conservation Speaker Series

This series will bring an important conservation speaker to each of Aquidneck Island's three communities so as to help people better understand the importance of ALT's work. The next presentation will be James Howard Kunstler's talk entitled "The Long Emergency and Its Implications on Land Use" scheduled for Thursday, May 25th at 6:30 pm at the Portsmouth Town Hall. See below for more details.

Steve Small presented his lecture "We've Come A Long Way Baby!" at ALT's 2006 Annual Meeting at the Atlantic Beach Club in Middletown.  Mr. Small  presented to an audience of over 200 people. Steve Small is a tax attorney with his own firm in Boston.  He has written a number of books about land conservation from a tax perspective.  He also advises landowners throughout the United States in order to help them protect their special lands.  Before going into private practice, Mr. Small was an attorney-advisor in the Office of Chief Counsel of the IRS where he wrote the federal income tax regulations on conservation easements.

James Howard Kunstler will present

 "The Long Emergency and Its Implications on Land Use"

at the Portsmouth Town Hall on Thursday May 25, 2006 at 6:30pm

James Howard Kunstler’s first book The Geography of Nowhere focuses on "the tragic landscape of highway strips, parking lots.. and ravaged countryside." His next book Home From Nowhere was a continuation of that discussion with an emphasis on the remedies.  His latest book, The Long Emergency, is about the global oil predicament, climate change, and other shocks to the system.

He is a regular contributor to the New York Times Sunday Magazine and Op-Ed page, where he has written on environmental and economic issues.

Kunstler has lectured at many colleges, such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell, MIT, and has appeared before organizations such as the AIA and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Peter Forbes will present

"Translating the Soul of the Land"

at the Newport City Hall on Thursday November 9, 2006 at 6:30pm

Peter Forbes, a photographer, writer, and farmer considers himself a life long student of the relationship between land and people.   

For ten years, Peter led the Trust for Public Land in New England. In 1998, Peter became TPL’s first national fellow and devoted himself to researching and writing about how individual and community relationships with the land can become the seeds for broader social change. In 2001, he founded the Center for Land and People, to help foster a new practice of land conservation where relationship is as important as place.  He later began to unfold an ambitious dream of creating a place, and a set of relationships, that might help to create healthier, whole communities. Today, the Center for Whole Communities has alumni from 38 states and more than 150 communities and organizations.

Peter’s essays are included in the following books Our Land, Ourselves: Readings on People and Place and the Great Remembering: further thoughts on land, soul and society, and Coming to Land. 

 Admission to all presentations of the

Conservation Speaker Series is FREE.

If you would like to attend the Conservation Speaker Series or would like more information

RSVP to Megan at mandersen@ailt or 401-849-2799 x19.

The Aquidneck Land Trust’s mission is to preserve Aquidneck Island’s open spaces and natural character for the lasting benefit of our community.  The Land Trust has conserved over 1,422 acres on Aquidneck Island.  The Land Trust is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.  For more information, visit www.AquidneckLandTrust.org or call (401) 849-2799.