By John Bradley In the past year Claverack and neighboring towns have launched initiatives to update their comprehensive plan. In addition, the Columbia Land Conservancy (CLC) developed a regional conservation plan. Climate change figures prominently in these planning discussions, an important new development from a decade ago. Resilience in the face of climate change and ecosystem health are now becoming key considerations. The CLC’S Plan to Conserve Columbia County (CLC

SCAPE, “Stewarding Claverack and Philmont’s Environment” recently collected votes from Claverack and Philmont community members on nine focal areas for our shared environment. SCAPE mailed 2600 ballots to available Claverack postal routes and PO boxes, with additional outreach to get out the vote at the Claverack and Philmont libraries, special events, through municipal and non-profit e-blasts, and volunteer canvassing. Our goal was to collect 260 responses (1/10th of mailed

By: Jeff Kiplinger When we bought our house on nine acres in 2013, we decided to open up some of the scrubby woodland and began a long process of learning how to increase biodiversity on the land. We wanted more diversity of native plants and trees, fewer invasive plants, and habitat for birds and insects. Instinctively – without much reasoning about why this was important – we cleared and left some areas open as “meadows”. We have three areas we call meadows, ranging from

By Al Bellenchia Firstly, I want to invite everyone to Columbia-Greene Habitat for Humanity’s upcoming Community Celebration on May 2nd at our new ReStore location in Livingston, which marks the beginning of the next chapter for our organization. Everyone is welcome to come learn more about our vision and plans, how to support Habitat, meet our team, and tour a prototype home being built on-site that reflects our new direction: modern, energy-efficient homes designed to be sa