Dr. Paul K. Barten, Professor and Honors Program Director, Department of Environmental Conservation at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst will speak on Thursday, October 16, from 7 – 8:30 in the Hunnewell Building of the Arnold Arboretum on the topic of The Origins and Legacy of the Catskill Forest Preserve. The Catskill Forest Preserve was established in 1885 and protected as “wild forest, forever†with an 1894 amendment to New York’s Constitution. This designation represented a major change in public opinion and political will as well as an early success for the fledgling conservation movement. The landscape paintings of Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, and other Hudson River School artists, the stirring fiction of Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper, and the writings of George Perkins Marsh and John Burroughs had a dramatic and formative influence on societal values and attitudes. This opened a new era in which the damage to forest ecosystems by tanbark peelers, “cut and run†loggers, and market hunters could no longer be reconciled with the “the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run†and a thriving tourism industry. The presentation will conclude with some thoughts on where we appear to be as a nation on the forest preservation—conservation—utilization spectrum in the 21st century. Fee $5 Arboretum member, $10 nonmember. Thomas Cole painting of Catskill Creek from www.images.fineartamerica.com. Register online at https://my.arboretum.harvard.edu/Info.aspx?EventID=1. Â
