Leadership in the conservation movement will be the topic of the first lecture in the 2015 South Mountain Speakers Series on March 10 at the Carlisle Theater, Carlisle.

The free event will include the showing of two short documentaries produced by WITF on Pennsylvania conservation leaders Ralph Abele and Maurice K. Goddard, followed by a panel discussion.

“Pennsylvania has been called the ‘Cradle of Conservation’ for the role the state and many of its leading citizens played in creating a popular conservation movement in America,” said Jon Peterson, a planner with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy who is coordinating the committee on the speakers series. “We invite everyone to join us to learn more about our state’s conservation and environmental heritage, and then to share ideas to inspire our current and future leaders.”

The evening will begin at 7 p.m. with the two films. Ralph Abele was an executive director of the then Fish Commission and was involved in many water quality conservation victories at the state and national level. Maurice K. Goddard was the driving force behind the creation of 45 state parks during his 24 years as a cabinet officer for six Pennsylvania governors.

The panel discussion that will follow will be moderated by Caren Glotfelty, executive director of the Allegheny County Parks Foundation, and will include: Cindy Adams Dunn, Acting Secretary of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources; Marci Mowery, president of the PA Parks and Forests Foundation; Pete Duncan, former secretary of the Department of Environmental Resources and colleague of Abele; and Paul Zeph, director of conservation for Audubon Pennsylvania.

This event is supported by the Pennsylvania Conservation Heritage Project, WITF and the South Mountain Partnership. The forum is free and open to the public.

The annual South Mountain Speakers Series is envisioned as a revival of the talks given by Joseph Rothrock in the late 19th century as part of his work to preserve and restore Pennsylvania’s forests and natural landscape.

There are five lectures scheduled in the 2015 season of the South Mountain Speakers Series. They additional four are:

— March 26: The Mills of Cumberland Valley: A Cultural and Bio-Physical Legacy, Cumberland County Historical Society, Carlisle;

— September 25: The Ethnomusicology of Snow Hill Cloister: Place in Hymns, Franklin County;

— October 8: Summer in South Mountain: The Craighead Family Legacy, Cumberland County Historical Society, Carlisle: and

— November 12: Living on the Wind: Tracking Northern Saw-whet Owls Migrating Along South Mountain, Shippensburg University.

The South Mountain Partnership is a public-private partnership between DCNR and the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, and has grown into a coalition of citizens, businesses, non-profit organizations and government representatives in Adams, Cumberland, Franklin and York counties, working together to protect and enhance the South Mountain landscape.

South Mountain is at the northern end of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Communities in the 400,000-acre region have thrived off fertile limestone agricultural lands, the timber that fed iron furnaces, plentiful game and wildlife, and abundant pure spring water that is captured by the mountains’ permeable soils and released into the valleys.

For more information about the speakers series, visit the South Mountain Partnership Blog.

3/2/2015