Submitted by admin on Wed, 02/09/2011 - 10:51am
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| Author Alex Shoumatoff speaking in Bedford on March 6, 2011, as part of the Leon Levy Environmental Symposium. Photo copyright Mardi Welch Dickinson, Kymry Group TM/all rights reserved |
A capacity crowd of more than 100 people filled Historical Hall in Bedford on Sunday March 6 to hear author and Bedford native Alex Shoumatoff give the keynote address in Westchester Land Trust’s third annual Leon Levy Environmental Symposium.
Shoumatoff is one of the most far-flung of all environment and travel authors. He writes for Vanity Fair magazine and is a former staff writer for The New Yorker. He is the author of 10 books, including Legends of the American Desert, The World is Burning, African Madness, and Westchester: Portrait of a County.
(Alex sent us his typescript of the talk, which you can read here.)
(Alex sent us his typescript of the talk, which you can read here.)
Shoumatoff is also the publisher/writer of www.dispatchesfromthevanishingworld.com, a website dedicated to raising consciousness about disappearing species and cultures, which is visited by readers from 90 countries each month.
Shoumatoff, who is 64, attended Rippowam-Cisqua School in Bedford and graduated from Harvard. As a young man, he worked as the curator of the Marsh Sanctuary in Mount Kisco and taught natural history at Rippowam-Cisqua.
He inherited his love of the outdoors from his father and brother, Nicholas Shoumatoff Sr. and Jr. His father was president of Westmoreland Sanctuary and Bedford Audubon, and his brother was curator of Trailside Museum at Ward Pound Ridge Reservation.
The symposium followed by a week the annual Leon Levy Winter Walk, which was held Sunday, February 27, at the Leon Levy Preserve in South Salem. More than 50 people turned out on a beautiful, sunny afternoon to hike the preserve's trails.