Since she was a small child, Farley Brown '85, Faculty in Ecology, has had a firm connection to and curiosity about the land and how humans make use of it. Her formative experiences in the woods of suburban NJ and in the waters of the Hudson River caused her to wonder about how we make land use decisions, who influences those decisions, who gets to decide. Always an educator -- even when not working with students -- Farley encourages landowners, loggers, and legislators throughout Vermont to consider how they can work together to protect the working landscape and preserve wildlife habitat. Over the past 25 years, Farley has witnessed and participated in the emergence and evolution of the land conservation movement in Vermont -- consistently holding and living into those questions of how to steward this verdant lands and cool waters of this special place. Still connected, still curious, Farley can often be found clad in boots and waders, sampling streams, counting macroinvertebrates, and translating bio-indicators data into the stories about how human activity impacts riparian ecosystems and riverine health.  

[03:56]-out of college came to sterling and fell and in love with land and future husband

[08:44]-defining a watershed and thinking on it from different dimensions 

[13:19]-gathering data, research with students mostly in rivers doing "Bio-Assessments"-indicators of river health and the macro-invertebrate are telling a story of the river and the rivers are telling us about our land use

[21:00]Student's practicing skill sets in Black river in Vermont and use them traveling to the Monkey River in Belize

[24:21]-people now understanding and translating watershed information into environmental ethics

[27:55]-definition of environmental justice growing out of the civil rights movement