Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of attending the talk given by wildlife conservationist and Cornell ILR graduate, Andy Zepp. As someone who appreciates nature, but dislikes government intervention in economic activity, I found it really interesting to learn about the Finger Lakes Land Trust that Mr. Zepp works for. It not only acquires its land through buying it in the market, but gets its funding solely through private donations, which I thought was a great method of promoting conservancy. Furthermore, it was great to hear how the land trust also interacted with local land owners and made agreements with farmers about growing crops in a sustainable way and a way that did its best to accommodate wildlife. Despite all the progress Mr. Zepp told us about, he said that it is still difficult to bring ecosystems back to their historical conditions because of different agricultural practices and invasive species that have come into New York. One example I particularly remember was his comment that upstate New York actually used to have a fair amount of grasslands and that it was only in the past 75 years that much of the forests grew in, which was something that was pretty surprising to me. Overall I was glad to have had the chance to hear from someone who is doing such great work for the environment and I hope he and his organization to continue to have more success.