Reading the Landscape Walk

Photo: Mining bee on great white trillium, a common spring ephemeral in Cornwall (Emily May).

The Conservation Commission hosted a nature walk with Alicia Daniel in April 2024. This fascinating walk was a deep dive into a hyper-local landscape of Cornwall.  A contributor to the book Our Better Nature: Hopeful Excursions into Saving Biodiversity, Alicia Daniel helped us “read the landscape” to understand the power of resilient ecosystems and how we can turn our collective desire to protect biodiversity into actions that do so. 

The Vermont Alliance for Half Earth has the following to say about her: Alicia Daniel’s love of nature has taken her across the continent from tracking black bears in Alaska to surveying bat caves in Texas to seeing an arribada of Olive Ridley sea turtles on a moonlit beach in Costa Rica. Exploring her Vermont backyard with Vermont Master Naturalists is now her dream come true. After 30 years of teaching UVM Field Naturalist graduate students, Alicia Daniel launched the Vermont Master Naturalist Program to advance conservation, build community, and connect Vermonters to the wild heart of place. Alicia is also the Field Naturalist for the City of Burlington working in conservation education, reforestation, and managing forested parks for wildlife and plant diversity.