The Long Island Conservancy’s first mission is education. We must convey to Long lslanders the environmental challenges we are now facing so that we can begin to address them.
The Long Island Conservancy wants speak before your group — your school, your org, your civic, local officials, anywhere in Nassau or Suffolk County. Is there a particular local concern you wish to address? Our second mission is invasive removal and habitat restoration. Is there a park nearby overrun with invasive plants? A pond covered in algae and dying?
These are the issues that concern us. In Nassau County, we are working closely with The Science Museum of Long Island to make it a center of excellence of local environmental education. In Suffolk County, we are engaged in the same with Meadow Croft, a former Roosevelt Estate now being restored inside and out.
We can come to speak, or your we can have you on our podcast, or even have you live streamed in our studio, however we can get the word out.
Our shows will run a half hour and cover specific topics — Beech Leaf Disease, Harmful Algal Blooms, Restoring The American Chestnut, English Ivy Removal, Creating a Bioswale, Planting a Pollinator Garden, Japanese Knotweed, etc.
We will have 30-90 second PSAs during the show where we will give people the opportunity to speak to a topic of interest to them regarding LI’s environment. Additionally, we can record up to 3 musicians for ‘acoustic interludes’ during the show.
So here we have an array of means to help people understand why its imperative for us to create native habitat in our yards and our public spaces, and help teach them how they can do this in their community.
By the estimate of Prof Doug Tallamy, we need at least 70% productive native plants on our grounds to support local nature. The Long Island Conservancy has informally estimated that Long Island yards and park to have around 25%, after centuries of gardening and landscaping, with the invasive plants really gaining steam with climate change.
Long Island is badly losing a war it doesn’t even know it’s fighting. Once we know what’s at stake, we can begin to change our fate. The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is today. Let’s reconnect with Nature, and return it to our communities.
Is the issue in Suffolk? Use this map to find the property lot in question. We need to locate the issues before we can deal with them. Is the issue in Nassau? You can find the property lot on this interactive map, and with that tell us what is there and what you think needs to be done.