This week’s Rose Café featured Andy Zepp, an ILR grad and an Executive Director of the Finger Lakes Land Trust, which protects thousands of acres of land around the Finger Lakes. Most students are often stuck on Cornell’s campus and don’t recognize the beauty of Ithaca. I remember coming to Cornell and planning on going on all these nature walks and seeing all the gorges. We traveled down to Six Mile Creek and went to Buttermilk Falls but once the schoolwork started to pick up it was hard to find the time to go.

One interesting fact I learned was that there are a lot of forests used for growing hardwoods like cherry, maple, and oak. There are some sawmills around who actually ship wood all off the world. I really think this demonstrates a disconnect people have with nature nowadays. It’s easy to just sit on your laptop and watch Netflix all day and then think you have no time to spend outside with friends. Ithaca and the surrounding areas have so much to offer but yet students are secluded on campus. Instead, we spend our time at CTB, libraries and classrooms. We don’t really appreciate the location as much as we should. I think that it would be beneficial for students to get out more and visit the different Finger Lakes and gorges. Students would really appreciate Ithaca more instead of viewing it as a cold and dreary plac