Howard E. Woodin Environmental Studies Colloquium Series

“Tell Me What You Think – Three Thousand Acres in the Champlain Valley: Middlebury College Lands Planning” a Howard E. Woodin Environmental Studies Colloquium Series talk by Marc Lapin, College Lands Conservationist and Associate Laboratory Professor in Environmental Studies.

Land, place, and culture are inseparable. Our communities and our connections with all of life root in the places we inhabit. Imagining a future always involves where we live, and current decisions about those lands can set trajectories and shape opportunities. Present-day choices truly allow for maintaining options, or for limiting them.

For the past year, the Lands Stewardship Advisory Group has worked on a Long-Term Lands Plan that acknowledges the complexity of values and functions alive in the 3,000 acres of College valley landholdings. We reviewed current pressing concerns expressed and mapped in listening sessions, and those codified at local, state, and region-wide scales. The plan is grounded in respect for the landscape’s ecological functions, as well as concerns for more housing, for maintaining agricultural productivity, and very likely, for more local electricity generation. It is also grounded in the history of Middlebury College’s commitment to education, a strong local community and economy, human health and well-being, and future flexibility. We’ve been listening to the land and to the multiple communities in the hope that this plan integrates many values, capabilities, and hopes.