Our Work Continues

Davitt Woodwell, President

PEC’s 50th anniversary year continues to unfold in ways that not many imagined in January. While we anticipated doing a bit of self-congratulation at our various 2020 dinners, those events will now all be virtual this fall (but we will still talk a bit about our first fifty years).

We at PEC have been fortunate to be able to continue the bulk of our work during the last five months. It turns out that it has been important that we did. With adaptation as our touchstone, PEC’s staff and many partners have moved forward on projects and programs and worked hard both to keep important policy measures on track as well as to argue strongly against rollbacks in Harrisburg.

During this time, we have, among other things, focused on keeping watershed groups connected, published a report on the impacts of “lock-downs” on trail use, promoted critical climate policy, and even managed to get about 70,000 trees planted on formerly mined lands.

Looking forward, we are in the midst of a strategic planning process that began pre-COVID-19, but that will now include an even stronger look at ensuring that PEC fulfills our responsibilities in the move to greater diversity, equity, and inclusion, building on our early inclusionary work around the Circuit Trails.

We could not have gotten to this point, or through this year, without the support of you and many others.

While all this may sound like the self-congratulations of a 50-year-old organization, it is really meant to say that we could not have gotten to this point, or through this year, without the support of you and many others who have made it a point to support PEC in any of many ways not only this year, but through our history.

In a year when so many Pennsylvanians have re-discovered Penn’s Woods, all of us at PEC look forward to continuing to advocate for the conservation and environmental values that have been on display and that will be critical as we gradually move into recovery. The words of the Environmental Rights Amendment to the Commonwealth’s Constitution have never rung truer, nor loomed larger, as they do today.

To our members, partners, funders, and friends (as well as those who don’t always agree with us), I say thank you for your support.