| |
Heron’s Eye Communications’ mission is to foster
positive change and awareness on issues related to community,
the environment and how humans interact with and affect each. As
producer of the public television documentary, Nature’s
Keepers,
Heron’s Eye spearheaded a fundraising campaign, coordinated interview
subjects and locations and handled publicity efforts for this
inspiring story of the people of Pennsylvania’s fastest growing
county — Pike
County — who are taking a leadership role on land stewardship
and smart growth. The film presents Pike County as a model for
other communities nationwide that struggle with similar challenges.
Often called the birthplace of the American conservation movement
because it was home to the Pinchot family and innovative thinking
about the management of our natural resources, Pike County continues
to be at the forefront of conservation issues today. Pike’s 150-year-heritage
of natural resource conservation and land stewardship forms the
basis for Nature’s Keepers, a one-hour documentary made for broadcast
on public television stations around the country.
Gifford Pinchot, first chief of the US Forest Service, two-time
Governor of Pennsylvania and the “father of the conservation movement,” had a profound importance and is a large part of Pike County’s
legacy. But his influence is only one part.
Nature’s Keepers also highlights the following:
In the 1870s, the Blooming Grove Hunting and Fishing Club’s
property became the first forest in the United States to be scientifically
managed;
In 1911, the Milford Experimental Forest was established specifically
to study forest health and regeneration (it is still in operation
today);
From 1901-1926 students from the Yale School of Forestry spent
summers at Forest Hall on Broad Street in Milford and at the Yale
Forestry Camp. Also Leopold (conservationist, forester, philosopher,
writer and educator) studied here for a time, as did most of the
leaders of the forestry profession;
In the 1940s, the second solar-powered house in the nation,
now known as the Ramirez House and part of the Delaware Water Gap
National Recreation Area, was built on the Raymondskill Creek
In the 1960s, Pike County became the site of one of the first
widespread citizen activist movements to protect the environment
when local communities opposed the Tocks Island Dam;
In the 1970s, the Upper Delaware River received an historic
designation from Congress as a “Wild and Scenic River,” largely
in response to local activism; and
Last year they overwhelmingly passed the Scenic Rural Character
Preservation Bond to fund better planning and help protect the
environment in the face of dramatic growth.
In addition to highlighting the legacy of conservation in Pike
County, Nature’s Keepers focuses on how this legacy continues today
through citizen activism in response to development that has made
Pike County the fastest growing county in Pennsylvania and one
of the fastest growing in the Northeast United States.
Other
2008 winners for the Governor's Awards. |
|
