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Conservation Commission

Conservation and More

              by Bruce B. Beckley

Issue #30, June 25, 1997
Music Of The Night

As the sun sets, the volume of noises on the lake turns down until only an occasional people sound is discernible. Two nights from now the thousands of motorcycles churning around Weirs Beach eight miles across the water will create the sound of a distant Niagara. But tonight, we can sit enjoying the gift of a few days on a friend’s lovely island sanctuary.

We sit watching lights appear on the far shore through the evening haze like stars appearing in a twilight sky. In front of us two deer nonchalantly pause to nibble the shrubs while crickets and tree frogs begin their nocturnal braggings. Maybe in their music of the night is a clue to answering a question I was asked and couldn’t answer very well before we came to the lake.

I was being questioned on the value to the town of investing in open space. Reduced development in the long run, reduced demand for community services, even protection of wildlife habitat, these are fairly tangible concepts. But how about aesthetics, preservation of the town’s "character", space to go to be recreated – these are much less tangible and harder to sell. How do you separate your neighbors from their money for intangible open space benefits?

Listening to the music the night provided makes me glad to be a visitor in the space. Down on the lake two loons with a mile of water between them call back and forth in an eerie duet. Soon the squabbling of children, raccoon children, in the nearby woods drowns out all the other choristers. Just before dawn the dog-like hooting of the barred owl drifts through the woods from a perch in some tall pine. Maybe selling appreciation of open space is like selling faith in a supreme being. Experience, encounter and repeated hearing the spoken word eventually make believers.

A final movement in the symphony of night music begins just before 4 AM with the hint of the coming dawn. Even before the birds start to build their crescendo, the hum of the bumblebees stealing sweetness from the rhododendron and honeysuckle bushes outside the window penetrates our senses. The feathered crescendo does build as all the little peeps sing out arias and descants on descants. Even the crows have to add their notes out of some jazz score.

Experiencing this night of music reminds me how much I would miss all those critters and their sound if they had to move away because their space was needed for a human’s den.

You may not have realized that on June 1 United Nations Environmental Sabbath was observed. It’s not one of the bigger religious celebrations. This is what a church bulletin had to say on that day:

Space exploration may not necessarily have brought us closer to God, but it has brought us closer to earth, which is God’s.

"It’s so small and so fragile and such a precious little spot in that universe...., and you realize that on that small spot, that little blue and white thing, is everything that means anything to you ---all of history and music and poetry and art and death and birth and love, tears, joy, games, all of it on that little spot out there...." -- Russell Schweikart, Astronaut

Selling preservation of open space is a hard sell! Especially at a time when VOTE NO has so much appeal. Somehow it must be done for our part of "...that little spot out there".

Visit Your ACC

We hope you will visit the Amherst Conservation Commission at our website, http://www.ultranet.com/~harts/acc/ or at our display on the green July 4.