By 6pm on Thursday, August 15, the back room at Sloop Brewing Company’s East Fishkill location was packed to the gills. Some 100 conservationists, scientists, and concerned citizens had gathered for the premiere of A Living River, a new short documentary from National Geographic filmmaker Jon Bowermaster, which lovingly depicts the efforts of Riverkeeper, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), and other conservation groups to restore life within the Hudson River.
Bowermaster’s film was the launching point for August’s Chronogram Conversation, which was sponsored by Riverkeeper and produced in collaboration with The River Newsroom. The screening was followed by a discussion with regional experts and activists co-moderated by Bowermaster and Chronogram‘s acting editorial director, Marie Doyon.
The panelists were Emily Vail, executive director of the Hudson River Watershed Alliance; Dr. George Jackman, Riverkeeper’s habitat restoration manager; Frances F. Dunwell, coordinator of the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River Estuary program; and Asher Pacht, director of environmental programs at Clarkson University’s Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries.
The panelists discussed many topics, including which fish populations are and are not rebounding; the intersecting role of government, nonprofits, and citizen-led organizations in the cleanup and study of the river; restoring migration routes through de-damming; and the general health of the Hudson River at present.
To learn more about you can help the Hudson River ecosystem, go to Riverkeeper.org.
Save the date—our next conversation on inclusive community planning will be October 15 from 6-8pm at Clarkson University’s Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries. Chronogram.com/conversations.
This article appears in September 2019.
