We're proud of our 2008 beneficiaries, Black Rock Forest Consortium and Sustainable Hudson Valley, respected stewards and advocates of our land and waterways. No single organization can reverse the catastrophic accumulated damage to our planet. It takes the dedication and foresight shared by these groups, who have an ongoing commitment to protect the Hudson River and the surrounding lands and engage in critical scientific research and environmental education.

Sustainable Hudson Valley

By partnering with the business community, government and other non-profits Sustainable Hudson valley is leading the way to a vibrant local economy and a healthy regional environment.

Sustainable Hudson Valley helps communities bring the vision of economic and environmental vitality to life. An innovative think tank and leadership organization, SHV is forging new approaches to a global warming response with greener, more livable communities and creative economies that focus on environmental solutions.

Our work in 2008 is organized around two key initiatives:

Climate Action: In responding to the serious challenge of global warming, local communities are emerging as a dynamic force. Sustainable Hudson Valley and 11 partner organizations convened the Municipal Leaders Summit on Climate Protection last fall with a standing room crowd of elected officials, state and local agency staff, funders and citizens to take action. We went on to coordinate the Municipal Climate Protection Partnership of 12 state programs and nonprofit organizations, formed to support effective community action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate changes that can't be prevented. We are working with a major scenario planning effort called Rising Waters, convened by The Nature Conservancy, to help decision makers grapple with the possible impacts of climate change and assist their communities in protecting people, nature and economic assets. At the very local level, we are engaging citizens in direct positive action through the Cool Kingston Campaign which is building momentum for a more bike-friendly city with expanded gardens, parks, and tree cover.

Green Economy: A cluster of projects supports "clean and green" technology in county plans, industry training, and market development. We understand a truly green economy to be diverse, locally controlled, resource-efficient, innovative, and community-friendly. We promote this vision by supporting key industry clusters including environmental technologies, creative enterprises and Main Street merchants through the programs of the Hudson Valley Sustainable Business Network, part of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies.

Our signature fall conference, Cool Communities/ Living Economies, brings together community and business interests to connect, strategize, and frame the next year's action plan. Keynote speakers L. Hunter Lovins (Natural Capitalism) and Judy Wicks, proprietor of the White Dog Cafe, have brought energizing messages to the region. Our expanded 2008 conference will be September 19 and 20.
Since 2004, Sustainable Hudson Valley success stories have included:

♦ Coauthored the manual, Taking Action: The EarthCat Guide to Sustainable Communities based on Burlington, Vermont’s success model, and helped to produce a study tour to Burlington;

♦ Educated community leaders in seven counties on the methods of “local first” development through workshops and retreats, over a dozen showings of Independent America: the Two Lane Search for Mom and Pop, and five seminars and a retreat with Michael Shuman, author of the popular Small Mart Revolution;

♦ Partnered to develop a Green Building Materials and Products Directory for the metropolitan New York construction industry, published by the Sullivan County Partnership for Economic Development;

♦ Produced two agenda-setting annual conferences, Cool Communities/Living Economies;

♦ Created the Northern Dutchess First! economic strategy to help ten towns and villages combine home-grown industry and rural quality of life – winner of the 2007 Charting the Course Award;

♦ Coordinated Ulster County’s “green technology” strategy committee and Global Warming Advisory Committee;

♦ Launched the Hudson Valley Sustainable Business Network, one of 55 members of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, which provides its members with monthly Peer to Peer support sessions to strengthen the business performance of community- and environment- friendly enterprises.

♦ Convened the standing-room-only Municipal Leaders’ Summit on Climate Protection on August 24, 2007, and formed the ongoing Municipal Climate Action Partnership to help the region’s communities take effective action.

Richly networked in the region and internationally, Sustainable Hudson Valley's highest skill is collaborative leadership. We bring together innovators in business, government and community to create locally effective, lasting solutions.

www.sustainhv.org

Black Rock Forest Consortium

The Black Rock Forest Consortium is a unique alliance of colleges and universities, public and independent K-12 schools, and leading scientific and cultural institutions that operates the nearly 4000-acre Black Rock Forest, located 50 miles north of New York City in the Hudson Highlands, as a field station for scientific research, education, and conservation. The Forest features dramatic topography with over 1000 feet of relief, numerous lakes and streams, and high habitat and species diversity.

Activities include faculty and doctoral research, staff and teacher training, undergraduate education and research, and school programs at all levels. The Consortium also emphasizes ecological management, “green” and “smart” construction, and environmental monitoring. In addition to fieldwork in the Forest, researchers and students can stay in the 60-bed Forest Lodge, a marvel of environmentally responsible construction, and use state-of-the-art lab equipment in the adjacent Science and Education Center.

Programs include:

Education

Since the founding of the Consortium in 1989, some 150,000 students have participated in the Consortium's educational programs. Consortium colleges and universities include fieldwork in biology, conservation, and environmental sciences in the Forest in many courses. Professional development programs range from training undergraduates to teach in urban middle schools to providing conservation training for scientists, planners, and managers from around the world. For K-12 students, important goals include fostering scientific literacy and understanding of the natural world. Students can pursue real research studies, collect and manipulate data, and sometimes meet and work with scientists

The Consortium’s School in the Forest program offers New York City public schools the same opportunities to participate in the Forest’s science education programs that independent schools in the city and public schools in Orange County have enjoyed since the creation of the Consortium.

The program not only brings elementary and middle-school students to the Forest for day and overnight trips, but also includes teacher orientation, classroom visits by Consortium educators and scientists, and full Consortium membership. Currently, PS 220 in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx and PS/IS 311 in northern Manhattan’s Inwood neighborhood are engaged in the program.

Research

Research at the Forest spans a broad range of disciplines, with current research foci in forest ecology, wildlife biology, ecophysiology, biogeochemistry, and paleoecology. Since the creation of the Consortium in 1989, scientists have produced more than 300 publications, in addition to the 75 produced under earlier ownership of the Forest. Since 1999, the Consortium has held a Research Symposium every other year.

Since 1995, the Black Rock Forest Consortium has integrated into the Forest a network of remote, automated monitoring stations, instrumented with environmental sensors, which continuously record properties of the air, soil and water. The network currently includes six stations, and all the information collected is automatically sent by radiotelemetry to a base station in the Science and Education Center where scientists, teachers, and students can all use the data.

www.blackrockforest.org