1 A Conversation with Kingsbury Browne Fellow Stephen J. Small Tax Deductible Conservation Easements – Four Decades of Progress, and Thoughts About the Future Moderated by James N. Levitt, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Harvard Forest This webinar is a collaborative effort of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Ash Center for Innovation and Democratic Governance at the Harvard Kennedy School 6.20.17 | Steve Small and Jim Levitt | [email protected]
Transcript
1
A Conversation with Kingsbury Browne Fellow Stephen J. Small Tax Deductible Conservation Easements – Four Decades of Progress, and Thoughts About the Future Moderated by James N. Levitt, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Harvard Forest This webinar is a collaborative effort of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Ash Center for Innovation and Democratic Governance at the Harvard Kennedy School
Land Trust Alliance: Honoring Steve Small http://www.landtrustalliance.org/blog/honoring-steve-small
Stephen J. Small Law Office of Stephen J. Small, Esq., P.C. New Address: 955 Massachusetts Avenue, #310, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA Tel. 617-357-4012 | Fax 617-357-1857 | [email protected]
The Book Collection Donated by Steve Small to Texas Tech University
• Category 1: The Conservation Classics • Category 2: The Activists • Category 3: Books of the Big Outside
8
Book Collection Category 1: The Classics
• “To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of years, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea, is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.”
Book Collection Category 1: The Classics “What are the natural features which make a township handsome – and worth going far to dwell in? A river with its water-falls – meadows, lakes – hills, cliffs or individual rocks, a forest and single ancient trees – such things are beautiful. They have a high use which dollars and cents never represent. If the inhabitants of a town were wise they would seek to preserve these things though at a considerable expense… It would be worth the while if in each town there were a committee appointed, to see that the beauty of the town received no detriment.” -- Henry David Thoreau, Journal, January 3, 1861
10
Book Collection Category 2: The Activists
• “Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.”
-- Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire, 1971
11
Book Category 3: Books of the Big Outside
“Time, he thought… There was no such thing as time, then, now or ever. Time was always. It was the changes, the trappings along the way, that a man reckoned his life by. Rendezvous dead and gone, along with plenty of those who had enjoyed it. Beaver nigh gone. Fur companies and some sometime mountain men making out with coarse furs. Before a man knew it, the buffalo might all be killed off…. “Mountains lasted and what else? The sky. The stars. Maybe the high plains and the riffling grasses, though like as not men would find a use for the land and gouge it up so’s to raise turnips and cabbages or some other truck not worth eating. Before that was done, he aimed to have a long, good look again.” -- A.B. Guthrie, Jr., Fair Land, Fair Land, 1982
12
Book Category 3: Books of the Big Outside
“The hills were easy and wooded at the mouth of the Cheyenne, and farther on cottonwood and a few elms and small ashes and buffalo berry and currant bushes made a lane for them. They saw elk-thirty of them in one bunch— and white wolves chasing along the bluffs, and once Boone and Summers and Jim came on a little place fenced in with poles, which had a post in the center painted with fading red and a buffalo head raised on a small mound of earth. Summers said it was medicine, to make the buffalo plenty. They saw trees scarred high by the ice that had gone out in the spring, and beaver cuttings and beaver tracks galore. Summers looked hungrily at the sign, and explained that hunters let this country be because the Rees claimed it for their own.” -- A.B. Guthrie, Jr., The Big Sky, 1947
13
About Steve Small’s Remarks at Texas Tech
For those of you who are interested, a link to Steve’s remarks at Texas Tech is available at www.stevesmall.com, under “Speaking.” For an annotated list of the books that Steve Small donated to the Texas Tech, see: www.innovations.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/steve-small-book-collection.pdf.
14
113 BRATTLE STREET CAMBRIDGE, MA 02138 @LANDPOLICY LINCOLNINST.EDU
DATE | PRESENTER | TITLE
Thank you to all of the Kingsbury Browne Award and Fellowship recipients recognized by the Land Trust Alliance and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy 2016: David Hartwell 2015: Steve Small 2014: Jean Hocker 2013: Larry Kueter 2012: Peter Stein 2011: Audrey Rust 2010: Jay Espy 2009: Jamie Williams 2008: Laurie Wayburn 2007: Mark Ackelson 2006: Darby Bradley
