Lectures

In the Spring of 2001, the Newton Conservators instituted a twice-yearly lecture series featuring experts in areas related to the open space mission of the Conservators. Peter Alden, well known naturalist and author, was the inaugural speaker on March 21, 2001.

Lectures are co-sponsored with the Newton Free Libary and normally will take place in the Druker Auditorium of the Newton Free Library (330 Homer Street). Thanks to the Newton Free Library for its cosponsorship of our lecture series.

Spring 2008 Lecture

North of Quabbin - Lessons in Land Protection

Allen Young
Land Protection Advocate

Wednesday, March 19, 7pm
Newton Free Library
330 Homer Street, Newton Centre

Newton's pure water originates in the Quabbin Reservoir in central Massachusetts, yet the area around Quabbin is unfamiliar to most residents except for perhaps birding and fishing enthusiasts.  Allen Young, land protection advocate and author of North of Quabbin Revisited: A Guide to Nine Towns North of the Quabbin Reservoir, will be the featured speaker for the Newton Conservators Spring Lecture.  He will talk about the unique nine-town area known as the North Quabbin as well as the Quabbin Reservoir itself, and about exciting and sometimes difficult land protection and recreational opportunities there.  It has relevance for the people of Newton who may appreciate the concept of saving the rural parts of the Commonwealth that are under so much development pressure.

Allen Young, journalist and author of 13 books, has lived for nearly 35 years in the North Quabbin Region, one of the most rural areas of Massachusetts. He settled to the town of Royalston (population about 1,000) in 1973 as part of the "back-to-the-land" movement, taking a job as reporter for the Athol Daily News, later working as the community relations director for the Athol Memorial Hospital.  His most recent book is a collection of articles entitled Make Hay While the Sun Shines: Farms, Forests and People of the North Quabbin.  Now retired, he cultivates a large vegetable and flower garden, and volunteers for the Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust, dedicated to protecting farms and forests in a 23-town area.  He holds a masters degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and was even briefly a reporter for the Washington Post.  In 2004, he received the Writing and Society Award from the University of Massachusetts English Department honoring a distinguished career of commitment to the work of writing in the world

The Newton Conservators Lecture Series is cosponsored by the Newton Free Library (617-796-1360).

Past Lectures

Fall 2007 - John Root
Edible Wild Plants of New England

Spring 2007 - Nick and Valerie Wisniewski
Tracking: The Art of Seeing

Fall 2006 - Peter Alden
Invasive Alien Plant Update - A Newton Perspective

Spring 2006 - Panel Discussion
The Community Preservation Act in Newton - Has It Been Worth It?

Fall 2005 - Colleen Olfenbuttel
Living with Wildlife in Newton

Fall 2004 - Carole Smith Berney
Celebrating the Charles River

Spring 2004 - Brendan Whittaker and Dan Perlman
Newton and the Northeast Kingdom – Natural Connections

Fall 2003 - Bob Wilbur
Land Protection: Now or Never

Spring 2003 - Jon Regosin
Focus on Vernal Pools

Fall 2002 - James Thorson
Stone by Stone - The Magnificent History in New England's Stone Walls

Spring 2002 - James W. Skehan
The Roadside Geology of Massachusetts

Fall 2001 - Dan Perlman
From Cold Spring Park to Planet Earth

Spring 2001 - Peter Alden
Inaugural Lecture on Biodiversity

Norumbega Park