Elder Meditation 5-11

Elder’s Meditation of the Day - May 11

Elder Meditation

Elder’s Meditation of the Day - May 3

“But I have learned a lot from trees: sometimes about the weather, sometimes about animals, sometimes about the Great Spirit.”

–Walking Buffalo, STONEY

Nature is the greatest teacher on the Earth. Nature produces many
different plants, animals, trees, rocks, birds, insects and weather
patterns. Nature designed all these various things to grow and multiply
while at the same time live in harmony with each other. We can learn a
lot of we observe and study Nature’s system of harmony and balance.
Today, go sit on a rock and quietly observe and ask to be shown the
lessons.

Great Spirit, Nature is my teacher. Today, let me be the student.

Elder Meditation

Elder’s Meditation of the Day - May 5

“There are many things to be shared with the four colors of man in our common destiny as one family upon our Mother the Earth.”

—- Traditional Circle of Elders, NORTHERN CHEYENNE

The Elders tell us the time will come when the four colors of Man
will unite into one family. According to prophecies, we were told this
would happen when the Sun was blocked in the Seventh Moon. There was an
eclipse of the Sun in July, 1991. We are now in a new Springtime called
the Coming Together Time. Each of the four colors of man has knowledge
that the other colors need to heal their families. Let us all be
willing to sit in a circle and respect our differences.

Elder Meditation

Elder’s Meditation of the Day - May 5

“There are many things to be shared with the four colors of man in our common destiny as one family upon our Mother the Earth.”

—- Traditional Circle of Elders, NORTHERN CHEYENNE

The Elders tell us the time will come when the four colors of Man
will unite into one family. According to prophecies, we were told this
would happen when the Sun was blocked in the Seventh Moon. There was an
eclipse of the Sun in July, 1991. We are now in a new Springtime called
the Coming Together Time. Each of the four colors of man has knowledge
that the other colors need to heal their families. Let us all be
willing to sit in a circle and respect our differences.

Things to miss after the collapse

1) A good NY Jewish bagel schmeared with cream cheese and lox

Good god do I even need to explain why? If you think that bagels are just round breads then you have never had a bagel, if you toast your bagel then you have never had a bagel, if your’ bagels come from the freezer or fridge or a plastic bag then you have never had a bagel, if your’ bagel isn’t circumcised then you have never had a bagel and I might even go as far as to say that those of you who did not grow up in the NY metropolitan area let me just say that you have never tasted a real bagel.

2) Israeli falafel, from Haifa, to Abu Gosh, to Tel Aviv, and Eilat.

Jumpin’ jehoosefat! I can honestly say that I have never had good falafel on US soil. My Mizarhim mishpacha know how to do that falafel justice!

3) NYC Pizza

I’m not talking about NY style pizza as it is called all around the states but simply NYC pizza, as in originating in that region. Something magical happens when you leave a certain radius of that filthy grotesque city wherein the quality of pizza drops off sharply and is only retained in very tiny remote and seemingly random locations around the country. But NYC remains the pizza king. Oh how I will miss you!

4) Dairy!

Dairy, dairy, dairy! Feta, chevre, havarti, gouda, provolone, jarlsberg, cheddar, parmesan, mozzarella, yogurt, cream, butter, milk, CHOCOLATE MILK, more chocolate milk, and milk that is chocolaty. Why!? Oh good gravy why!? I will miss you most of all chocolate milk, for you I will shed many tears.

5) NY style old school Jewish kosher deli

I’m thinking here of salami sandwiches stacked so high you can’t see over the top. Pastrami, corned beef, turkey, tuna salad, oh mein kosher moyel butcher and sandwich maker of cold cuts and assorted meats! Truly you are a king among kings! I will miss the side of cole slaw and sour pickle, I’ll miss the fresh rye bread and pumpernickel. I will even miss the busy psychotic atmosphere and old yiddishisms yelled among hanging gardens of salami.

6) Tropical fruit. Anytime. Anywhere. At all.

Mangoes, bananas, coconuts, passion fruit, guava, avocado, orange, grapefruit, lemon, lime, pineapple, plantain. (Tear) For those of us living far enough north I think also of watermelons, honeydew, and cantaloupe

7) Bicycles

Let me refer you to the Queen song, “Bicycle”.

Doctors and modern medicine

I’m the last person to knock native medicine, herbalism, shamanic healing, et cetera but the truth is that that is lost knowledge for nearly all humans and won’t return full force for a good long time. Whoa is us who will have to suffer the consequences. Until then, hurray for antiseptics and surgeons!

9) Ice cream.

I suppose that I should file this with dairy but what the hell. I scream for ice cream, my friends. I scream. Ice cream of virtually any flavor. Praise the gods!!! Praise them I say!!!

That’s all for now, I’ll have to addend this list later on but whoa that’s a lot to miss and man is it making me hungry.

The Great Dance

“When you track an animal - you must become the animal. Tracking is like dancing, because your body is happy - you can feel it in the dance and then you know that the hunting will be good. When you are doing these things you are talking with God.”
- !Nqate Xqamxebe 1998, The Great Dance, A Hunter’s Story

I once had a conversation about the hunt in which I was asked, ‘what do you do to honor the animal?’. I fumbled the answer and tried to satisfy what they were wanting me to say, which was that I did such and such ritual and this that and the other thing. I quickly occured to me afterwards how ridiculous the question was to begin with. The notion that something special needs to be done to honor the animal or the hunt is ludicrous, it asserts the “specialness” of spirituality. As though the spiritual were an aspect esclusive to particular times or places. The honor of the hunt is inherent in the hunt. It is inherent in the attitude of the hunter and in the very act of hunting. Honoring the animal is a matter of simply engaging in one’s contract with the animal. Any native person, anyone who is a part of their landbase is engaged in a number of contracts with their food, their resources, in which they take what they need and they recognize and respect the sacrifice being made. Their is no magic word “special” spell or ceremony that is done to honor the animal or the hunt. The honor is in the engaging in the natural lifeway along the guidelines of the evolved ecological contract with one’s relations. The only ceremony that is needed is the single, universal, most basic of ceremonies which is simply the uterance or enactment of “thanksgiving”. Meister Eckart, the German christian mystic said that “If the only prayer you ever say in your’ entire life is thank you, it will be enough.” Thanksgiving is the most basic spritual act. It is the fouding pillar of “spiritual” life. I hesitate the use the word spiritual because to even recognize it’s existance is almost to pressume that anything is or might not be spiritual. The basic assumption of any spiritualism is the existance of the other, and as far as animism goes that other suffuces everything. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. The spiritual is the “invisible” anologue of all the occurs in this our primary reality, our world of primary experience. The only absence or lack of spirituality or the other is in the failure of the experiencer to recognize it’s existance. The sacredness of the hunt and the kill isn’t sacrilized because the hunter dances around in a circle, cuts himself, or spills sand on the meat, it’s because he engages in life as he was evolved to live it. He performs his evolved function. He fulfills his contract, his function. These actions are innate, they are built into the physical framework of the body, of the psyche, of the culture, and of the environment. The honor is in recognizing this, in simply saying that “this is holy” in making oneself “transparent to transcendence”, in saying “thank you”, by engaging sacred space, whether by intention or by necessity. Spiritualism, honor, sacredness isn’t something that emerges from a magical incantation or text or what ever else it is emergent from action because, as Derrick Jensen states in premise sixteen, Premise Sixteen…

“The material world is primary. This does not mean that the spirit does not exist, nor that the material world is all there is. It means that spirit mixes with flesh. It means also that real world actions have real world consequences. It means we cannot rely on Jesus, Santa Claus, the Great Mother, or even the Easter Bunny to get us out of this mess. It means this mess really is a mess, and not just the movement of God’s eyebrows. It means we have to face this mess ourselves. It means that for the time we are here on Earth—whether or not we end up somewhere else after we die, and whether we are condemned or privileged to live here—the Earth is the point. It is primary. It is our home. It is everything. It is silly to think or act or be as though this world is not real and primary. It is silly and pathetic to not live our lives as though our lives are real.”

Action is the incumbant principal, move in action and the rest will follow, which is not to say that chanting, fasting, praying, etc aren’t going to do anything or arent valid and usefull practices but certainly they aren’t going to feed your’ village, they aren’t, as Tom Brown says, active meditations - the hunt is and the hunt will feed the village.

As !Nqate Xqamxebe says, “when you are doing these things you are talking with God”. When you are enaged in your’ ecological contract, your’ bliss, your’ function, then you are talking with God. The great dance is the realization of one’s function in action. When one is swept up in one’s bliss one is dancing. Tracking is the great dance, hunting is the great dance, the great dance is part of the human function.

Drum Culture

 From one end of this country to the other, the reasons Aboriginal people use the drum varies greatly from one cultural group to another and sometimes even within a cultural group itself.

Drumming events can be roughly placed into four main categories, but again, as in all things dealing with First Peoples’ music and culture, the specific instance of the drumming must be understood within its cultural context.

Social occasions

Social events are designed to bring the community together. Their purpose is to create solidarity and strengthen family, clan and community bonds. These events may be part of ceremonial and sacred activities or just pure entertainment.  This includes hand or stick games or contests.  Other social events are simply to dance and socialize. All serve to bring the people closer together and to foster a stronger sense of community solidarity.

Some social events bring young men and women together so that they get to know each other better. A prime example is the round dance in parts of Alberta. At this social function, the drummers and singer stand in the circle’s centre using hand drums. The people dance around them shuffling to the left. Everyone gets to dance and has a wonderful time.

In traditional cultures where men and women did not dance with each other, social events allowed them to gather together and socialize. The Inuit drum dances are among the better examples. This division of the sexes is still evident in the way the modern powwow is set up with the men and women dancing separately at most times. In societies where a more egalitarian approach is used, like the Iroquois, most of the social dances are mixed but there are still special dances for each gender.

Personal

Personal drumming events are much more difficult to describe.  They vary from individual to individual, not just culture to culture. For some, drumming can be a way to calm oneself, using drumming as a focus to prepare for difficult times and situations,  to find solace in times of loss, and for prayer  For some, private drumming is the preferred way to communicate with the “spirit helpers” that are part of their healing work. I, Rohahes,  can speak from personal experience that drumming has been a comfort for me in times of loss, a source of strength and inspiration when I was preparing for a particularly difficult task or event.

Healing

From historical and contemporary records, we know that healing was and is still practised among First Peoples. Depending on the culture involved, the drum or other percussive instrument such as the rattle usually plays a major role.

Ceremonial

Ceremonial drumming is also difficult to cover. Cultures within Canada are vast and complex. People drum ceremonially in two different ways. The first stream is religious and covers a culture’s many spiritual aspects. The second stream is social, political and civic drumming. The religious stream would cover important events in the annual cycle, important mythological events and any other religious activities that specific cultures would consider significant. The social, political, and civic streams would deal with events such as installing new chiefs or officials.  Events also include political visits from other Aboriginal groups and other events that are not specifically religious.   

No two drums are the same – each has its own distinctive structure, spirit, and life based on both the culture in which it was made and the hands of the one who made it. The drum is not just a music-maker, but a voice for the soul within the music.

Aboriginal cultures intertwine drumming, singing and dancing into their societies’ political and social fabric. To unfamiliar ears, native drumming and singing might sound similar. This could be because Native people across the country use many of the same musical resources, such as one person or group singing the same melody accompanied by percussive instruments. However, if people listen carefully they will discover that Iroquois social dance songs sound different than Innu drum dance songs. Likewise, Coast Salish songs are different than Cree or Siksika. These musical expressions are as varied as are Italian, Irish and Russian folk music.

 Differences in geography and landscape have produced a rich variety of cultures.  Each community used uniquely local materials to construct drums, rattles and other sound-producing instruments. The people also keenly understood their environment’s soundscape. Replicating those natural sounds was an important aesthetic consideration when making a drum or other instrument.

The most common drums First Peoples use today are the frame drum - a small, single-person, hand drum, and the large powwow drum that group members play together.   Most regions and cultures across the country had frame drums. Some exceptions included certain people of the West Coast – boreal rain forest, the Northern Arctic and the Iroquoian nations of Eastern Canada. Each group had its own distinct drums and other percussion instruments.

Some West Coast  boreal rain forest cultures did not have the frame drum until quite recently.  The reason may be purely practical; hide or leather objects do not endure or hold their tension well in the constantly humid boreal rain forest.  Instead, they used red cedar to make plank, log or box drums. Cedar not only is plentiful, but Northwest Coast cultures consider it spiritually significant.  Thus, drummers wrap their hands in cedar bark in order to drum.  The drums were valued cultural objects, but people most highly prized certain rattles, shakers and whistles for use in elaborate ceremonial cycles.

Plains

On the Plains, hand-held drums came in many sizes, ranging from 12 to 30 inches in diameter. These usually had just one skinhead stretched across the wooden frame, with a height of two to three inches.  Occasionally, drum makers also crafted two-headed drums. Additionally, certain cultures such as the Nehiyaw/Cree produced drums with tonal-adjusting snares stretched across the skinhead.

Before people used wooden frames, the drum consisted of a piece of rawhide thrown on the ground over a small depression.  People might have stretched a hide along vertical poles. In either case, no resonator existed. Male singers and drummers would sit around this hide beating it with long drumsticks.

Today, the most widely recognized large drum is the powwow drum.  These drums generally have two-heads and are suspended on poles or placed on a blanket.  The drums can be up to a hundred inches across. Originally, Plains people hollowed out a large log to make these drums and then stretched a deer hide over it.

Several stories exist about how this type of drum originated. Usually, people say it was  given by a woman. One story of the Ojibwe refers to a Lakota grandmother who hid with the water sprites for four days to save herself from American soldiers. The sprites taught her protective songs and showed her how to make this large drum.  They told her to search for her people so she could teach them these songs.  She did so, and the next time soldiers attacked her community, the sound of drum and the songs made them put down their guns and dance.

Central

The Ojibwe and Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) traditionally use water drums in some of their ceremonial practices. The teachings and stories connected with the “Little Boy” and the “Grandfather” drums are at the heart of the Ojibwe Midewiwin religion and worldview. The Ojibwe and Iroquois people often hollowed out logs to craft these water drums. In certain instances, they also used clay pots or iron kettles.  Additionally, these cultures used many types of rattles.  For example, the turtle rattle is among the Haudenosaunee’s most sacred ceremonial instruments.

The book, the Jesuit Relations of 1634, has described a Wendat drum.

[Le Jeune says the drum] . . . is the size of the Basque tambour.  It is composed of a circle three or four finger lengths in diameter and of two skins stretched tightly over it on both sides; in order to make more noise, they put inside it some little pebbles or stones. The diameter of the largest tambourine rattle is the size of two palms or thereabouts. They call it chichgouan, and the verb nipagahiman means, “I make this drum sound.”  They do not beat it as the Europeans do but they turn it and shake it, to make the stones rattle inside; they strike it on the ground, now on the side, now almost flat. (Sometimes a drum is made with a skin being stretched tightly over a cooking pot or kettle. Often only a dry beaver skin suffices as an instrument for the performer) [Thwaites 1959: VII, 187. While the Innu (Naskapu/Montagnais) use a large drum with snares, their southern neighbours, the ancient myths of the Maritime Mi’kmaq and Maliseet peoples do not mention an instrument with a rawhide head.  Instead, they refer to the end-blown flute and beating upon a plank or a large piece of folded birch bark:  The dji.gemayen is a piece of birch bark folded once, held in the hand and beaten with a stick.  Neither the birch bark nor the stick is carefully made or decorated in any way; both are discarded after being used” [Johnson 1943: 63].

Arctic

The Arctic people’s drums have large, light frames, which they play by striking the rim rather than the hide.  Their drums use a variety of materials such as deer skin, caribou and mountain sheep.  They also use whale or walrus intestines.  Originally, they made much smaller frames from baleen (whale material).  Today, the drums are larger and use wooden frames, a material that has become readily available.  Drumsticks are antler, bone or wood.

In 1860-1862, Captain Charles Francis Hall searched for survivors of Sir John Franklin’s Arctic expedition.  He revisited the Arctic in 1864-1869 and described an Inuit drum:

The drum is made from the skin of the deer or seal, which is stretched over a hoop made of wood or of bone from the fin of a whale by the use of a strong braided cord of sinew passed around a groove on the outside.  The hoop is about 2½  inches wide, 1½ inches thick, and three feet in diameter, the whole instrument weighing about four pounds.  The wooden drumstick, 10 inches in length and three inches in diameter, is called a kentun. . . .

The instrument’s head is a deerskin, which is to be the instrument’s head is kept frozen when not in use.  It is then thoroughly saturated with water, drawn over the hoop and temporarily fastened in its place by a piece of sinew.  A line of heavy, twisted sinew, about 50 feet long, is now wound tightly on the groove on the outside of the hoop, binding down the skin.  This cord is fastened to the handle of the kilaut [drum] which is made to turn by the force of several men (while its other end is held firmly), and the line eased out as required.  To do this, a man sits on the platform (of the igloo) having one or two turns of the line about his body, which is encased in furred deerskin and impaled by four upright pieces of wood.  Tension is secured by using a round stick of wood as a lever on the edge of the skin, drawing it from beneath the cord.  When any whirring sound is heard, little whisps of reindeer hair are tucked in between the skin and the hoop until the head is as tight as a drum.

When the drum is played, the drum handle is held in the left hand of the performer, who strikes the edge of the rim opposite that over which the skin is stretched.  He holds the drum in different positions, but keeps it in a constant fan-like motion by his hand and by the blows of the kentun struck alternately on the opposite sides of the edge.  Skillfully keeping the drum vibrating on the handle, he accompanies this with . . . motions of the body, and at intervals with a song, while the women keep up their own Inuit songs, one after another, through the whole performance (Hall 1879: II 96).

During the past century, cloth and nylon have replaced hide as Inuit drum-head materials.  In the eastern and central Arctic, the beater can be padded or not padded.  Sometimes, drummers even use their fists in lieu of a beater.  Among the Mackenzie Delta Inuvialuit, several drummers customarily perform in unison while dancers present story-telling actions.  The drummers use a wooden unpadded beater that is longer than the diameter of the drum head.  Consequently, the beater hits the wooden rim on both sides from underneath when striking regularly and makes contact with the skin on forceful beats.

Certain Canadian cultural groups make drums that have one or more snares. The Innu construct a one- or two-headed drum, the teueikan, which helps bring a hunter a dream about where game can be found.  The Innu attach a snare on the outside of each head.  On this, they fasten small pieces of bone or wood to make a unique rattling sound.  Usually the drum makers fasten another snare under the skinhead at right angles to the exposed snare.  These snares assist the sound in going out to the four directions.

The performer-hunter listens carefully to the sound while using a beater made of birch wood, a disc rattle, or, in earlier times, possibly an animal’s femur bone.  During this time, the hunter hopes that his dream will come with the song.

Many communities in the Northwest Territories and the Prairies have single-headed frame drums with one to four snares over or under the membranophone head (Keillor 1985-86: .46).

Antonia Curtze Mills described a dunne-za (beaver) frame drum with snares under the head:

Often the period of preparation for the dance includes the refitting or repair of the hand drums which are used by each singer.  A hand adzed plank of wood is made approximately one-half inch by approximately three inches by 24 inches.  Holes are drilled in the ends, the wood is steamed and bent in a circle and the holes tied together.  The frame is fitted with thongs with bird quills in them which act as snares against the drum head.  The drum head itself is made of the wet hide stretched over the frame and secured, dried and tempered by holding near the fire.  A good drum form is passed from generation to generation, but new ones are made if one is damaged or by a new singer, a youth who has not inherited a drum (Mills 1981: 77).

The communities have always considered this kind of drum to be very important.

The peoples’ [Dunne-za] dancing . . . is a form of praying. . . . Each time a person dances once around the fire, they say he shortens the route to heaven by that much. . . . The dancing is a prayer because the songs themselves, the Prophet Songs, are symbolic chants depicting the path to heaven, sent from the ‘seven grandfathers in heaven’ who look after the spiritual welfare of the Beaver, so that they may find their way to heaven after death” (Mills 1981: 80).

GCC forum explores changing energy use

 By JEREMY DIRAC Recorder Staff

Published: Friday, May 02, 2008

GREENFIELD — Nancy Hazard, the co-chair of the Greening Greenfield campaign, asked the crowd of about 50 people, ”Will we have gas-powered cars in 50 years?”Only two people raised their hands.

There is a movement at the national and international level to reduce dependency on fossil fuels and to create a more sustainable world, Greenfield Mayor Christine Forgey told those who had gathered at Greenfield Community College’s Downtown Center.

”I can’t help but think that it starts with communities like Greenfield,” she said.

The Pioneer Valley Institute hosted the ”Building Sustainable Communities: Getting Around Without Gasoline” forum Thursday night for people looking to make fossil fuels extinct.

”More and more, there’s going to be a demand for people with specific training,” said 50-year-old Carlos Cooper, a GCC student from Amherst.

Cooper, who moved to the valley from New York City, said while living in apartments he hadn’t dealt with or thought about the kinds of things that come with owning your own home, like renovating it to make it more energy efficient.

In the course of his exploration, Cooper decided to take classes at GCC and has become so interested in sustainability that he’s planning to leave the publishing field to become professionally certified in Renewable Energy/Energy Efficiency.

”We have to turn people away (from the program),” GCC Sustainable Energy Program Coordinator Teresa Jones said. ”We just can’t meet all the demand.”

Jones said that there are now 130 participants and GCC is making plans to offer an associate’s degree program. GCC is also hearing from businesses that say they’re experiencing a big increase in inquiries about green building.

Along with everyday wallet savings, getting away from fossil fuels has its political pluses, Hazard said.

Many consider the reliance on oil to be the cause of a variety of problems like global warming, air pollution, natural resource destruction, a trade deficit and military conflict.

Hazard said that two-thirds of the oil used in the United States is used for transportation.

But things are happening to shrink Franklin County’s carbon footprint.

For instance, $1.8 million has just been spent to acquire the Toyota of Greenfield site off Olive Street to locate a two-story, 24,000-square-foot transportation center to house the Franklin Regional Transit Authority and the Franklin Regional Council of Governments.

The facility is intended to be a near zero-net energy consumption center, FRTA Administrator Tina Cote said, who added that the federal government may use it as a model for future projects.

Although you still see sparsely seated FRTA buses, there was an 8 to 9 percent increase in ridership on all fixed routes in the 2008 budget year, Cote said.

Some at the meeting offered their hopes for the transportation center, suggesting that it have power outlets to charge electric vehicles and an area offering long-term parking accompany it.

Cote said that plans to expand West County bus service have temporarily stalled because she has not gotten assurances of town contributions or identified long-term grant sources and fears that expanded service would end just as it would start to get going.

Meanwhile, the Council of Governments is working to get passenger rail back to Greenfield and later this month is expecting to have a formal opening for a new bicycle path in Turners Falls.

Is species protection endangering development?

By ANITA FRITZ Recorder Staff

Published: Friday, May 02, 2008

GREENFIELD — State Sen. Stanley Rosenberg says a balance is needed between protecting wildlife and allowing economic development throughout western Massachusetts and the entire state, but he isn’t sure how that will happen.

The Amherst Democrat believes it might come in the form of a legislative bill, which could help developers and the state negotiate some of the limitations the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act puts upon developable land inhabited by rare species.

‘I’ve heard from a number of towns and developers about how development and the
environment sometimes interfere with each other,’ said Rosenberg.

Rosenberg said both the environment and development are important for the survival of the state. Many of his constituents, as well as developers and various town officials, have complained about the limitations
they’ve experienced when trying to build on land where a protected rare plant or animal is found.

The state regulations for endangered and threatened species and ’species of special concern’ are set by the Natural Heritage Endangered Species Program, which is part of the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. Rosenberg said many believe the act goes too far and will end up costing developers and land owners more than it’s worth. The Legislature and governor in 1990 approved the law and the detailed regulations were promulgated by Fisheries and Wildlife officials in 1992. The act puts restrictions on building lots where endangered, threatened or species of special concern live or have lived in the past.

The act establishes procedures for listing and protecting rare plants and animals and is meant to maintain biological diversity across the state, prevent extinction and contribute to rare species recovery.

According to reports of the Economic Development Council of Western Massachusetts, a private nonprofit corporation that helps businesses expand, relocate and succeed in the western part of the state, western Massachusetts has lost more than 46 percent of developable land over these environmental issues within the last five years. It claims the 46 percent equals the size of Agawam, Chicopee, Pittsfield, Springfield and Westfield combined and equates to 102,000 acres. It also claims the Interstate 91 corridor, which
includes three western Massachusetts counties, has seen ‘priority habitat’ double since 2003.

The entire state has lost 32 percent of its developable land due to endangered, threatened and species of
special concern, according to the EDC of Western Massachusetts.

Biggest complaints

The biggest complaints Rosenberg hears from developers and towns are the costs to modify or even review a project when it falls under the act. Little compensation on the state’s part and the inconvenience for developers and land owners to redesign, relocate or shrink a project are also major concerns.

‘Legislators are the ones that gave state agencies the directive to make policies to protect those species,’ said Rosenberg. ‘But sometimes, we have to step in and negotiate when (regulations) go too far.

‘I wouldn’t be surprised if someone brings a bill in December or January,’ he said. ‘But, it won’t happen this session.’

Rosenberg said he won’t bring a bill, because he doesn’t feel he has enough expertise on the subject.

‘Every case is so different,’ said Rosenberg. ‘I don’t even know how someone will draft something that would cover every possible scenario.’

What Rosenberg does know, he said, is that there needs to be a balance of reasonable, rational development, while the state continues to protect its natural heritage and species.

Natural Heritage’s review process

Lisa Capone, a spokeswoman for the Natural Heritage Endangered Species Program, said when endangered, threatened or species of special concern are thought to be living on developable land, an environmental review must be conducted by the agency.

That review can result in anything from a go-ahead without conditions to a blocking of the project.

According to Natural Heritage’s fee table, it can cost from $50 to file a request for a review to $7,500 to review a project proposed for a ‘priority habitat,’ land that has ideal conditions for a rare species.

As part of the review, a land owner or developer must hire a botanist or biologist and do numerous studies and reports. Those can cost thousands of dollars and projects can be delayed for months or even years.

A 2007 Natural Heritage listing of all of the 2,508 projects that were under review in Massachusetts due to either endangered, threatened or species of special concern, reported that 76 percent of those projects
moved forward without conditions, costing developers or land owners a minimal’ amount. Twenty percent had conditions placed on them before development could begin and 4 percent were unresolved or are still
pending.

‘The 76 percent still experienced a little aggravation through the process,’ said Rosenberg. ‘The rest went from experiencing minor to major inconveniences or complete blocking.

‘We have to preserve those species, but some developers come up against regulations that don’t allow them to move forward at all or limit tremendously what they can do, so they just walk away. We don’t want that to keep happening.’

Any solutions?

Rosenberg said all that legislators can do at the moment is talk with Natural Heritage and developers when the two hit an impasse.

‘Sometimes we have to push the agency to find reasonable alternatives and talk with developers about what they can do to help the situation,’ he said. “There needs to be more flexibility and there’s probably eventually going to have to be some sort of public policy or law to help the situation.’

State Rep. Christopher Donelan, D-Orange, agrees.

Donelan hasn’t heard as many complaints as Rosenberg, but has heard some. He said he believes there needs to be flexibility on both sides — environmental laws and economic development.

‘We want to protect endangered species, but legislators are interested in economic development for the state and this area,’ said Donelan. ‘Many times, we can accomplish that by working within areas, like industrial parks, that have been pre-permitted.

‘I think it’s important for state legislators, protection agencies and developers and land owners to have
more conversations about this,’ he said.

Problems can arise on pre-permitted land

One of the problems with working on pre-permitted land, as far as Natural Heritage’s rules are concerned, is that if an endangered, threatened or species of special concern shows up afterward, that land still has to go through the review process with Natural Heritage.

An example of that happened last year in the Interstate 91 Industrial Park. A plant called low bindweed, which is a trailing or twining weed that spreads rapidly through soil, was found on one of the lots — originally purchased by The Recorder for a printing facility — that will now have to go through the review process with Natural Heritage if anyone decides to build on the property. Low bindweed is listed by Natural Heritage as endangered, because of its rarity.

According to William Martin, chairman of the Greenfield Redevelopment Authority, which oversees the park, low bindweed was not listed on the park’s original environmental impact study done about 25 years ago. He said the GRA will be applying for an exemption for the entire park with Natural Heritage.

The agency does grant exemptions, but only under specific conditions and Martin isn’t sure the park will meet those conditions. Exemptions, on an individual basis, are granted for agricultural and aquacultural uses, maintenance, repair, replacement, vertical expansions and additions on land used for commercial,
industrial or residential, sheds constructed on existing lawns or paved areas and land surveying or management of state-listed species habitat.

Massachusetts and New Jersey are the only states where low bindweed is listed as an endangered species, because there is so little of it found throughout those states. It is listed as threatened in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont and as a species of special concern in Connecticut.

Capone said Natural Heritage received an anonymous report of the low bindweed, making it necessary for a review to be done before anything is built on the lot in the Greenfield industrial park.

‘It doesn’t look like the low bindweed is anywhere else in the park and it doesn’t seem that
the finding will affect any other properties in the park,’ she said.

There are currently three empty lots in the industrial park, which are owned by the Greenfield Redevelopment Authority, and two empty lots owned by someone else, one of which is the lot where the low bindweed was found.

Capone said there are times when a species is found on one property and not on any surrounding properties, but affects those surrounding properties because they may also be right for that species’ habitat. That doesn’t appear to be the case in the industrial park, she said.

Taking land from development

Natural Heritage produces an updated list of protected species and a habitat map every two years. The map identifies where numerous endangered, threatened and species of special concern live throughout the state. Some complain the map continues to grow each time, taking away developable land. The most recent update was in 2006.

On the 2006 map, three plants were added to the state list, including two endangered and one threatened. Eleven plants and animals were deleted from the list and two plants received status changes from endangered to species of special concern and threatened to species of special concern.

The state agency also updates its regulations when it sees fit. The most recent update was July 1, 2005, when filing requirements, review timelines and fees were revised.

The program currently protects 178 species of vertebrate and invertebrate animals and 264 species of
native plants officially listed in those categories. Rare species are determined by extinction risk, and according to Natural Heritage, the most pervasive threat to species in Massachusetts is habitat loss and
degradation.

Natural Heritage biologists and conservationists collect information on the abundance, distribution and conservation needs of rare species. Information is collected through field surveys, review of scientific data and research. Data includes population size, productivity and predation of different species.

There are also federal laws, the Federal Endangered Species Act of 1973, which protect numerous endangered species. The federal act lists only endangered species.

Another complaint from some Massachusetts towns, as well as land owners and developers, is that by the state adding threatened species and species of special concern to its list increases the chances of needing a review.

Rosenberg is sure the debate will continue over development versus environment.

‘We have to make room for both,’ he said. ‘We just have to find the best way to do that.’