Join John Davis, Jon Leibowitz, and Ronan Donovan for a panel discussion on wild lands and rewilding. This program is co-sponsored by the Howe Library and the Hanover Conservation Commission. This is a hybrid event. Join us in person in the Mayer Room to meet other movers and shakers in the conservation arena, or online via Zoom. No registration required in person; register for Zoom here.
John Davis, Rewilding Advocate at Adirondack Council, Jon Leibowitz, CEO of Northeast Wilderness Trust, and Ronan Donovan, National Geographic Fellow, will explore the future of wilderness and rewilding in the Northeast USA. They will focus on rewilding opportunities across the region, with particular attention to the potential recovery of missing carnivores—such as cougar and wolf—and to “wildways,” or habitat connections, that can be protected and restored. They will examine what wilderness is and is not, and how little of it exists—even here in New Hampshire despite the White Mountain National Forest. The discussion will highlight both the challenges and the hopeful possibilities of rewilding and wilderness protection, and invite us to imagine a future where wilderness and wildlife thrive once more across the region. A Q&A will follow the panel presentation.
Panel:
John Davis works as rewilding advocate for the Adirondack Council. In that role and as a wildways scout for The Rewilding Institute, his explorations have included a 7000 mile trek through wilder parts of the eastern United States and southeastern Canada, described in his book Big, Wild, and Connected: Scouting an Eastern Wildway from the Everglades to Quebec.
Ronan Donovan’s work as a National Geographic Fellow, wildlife biologist, and conservation photographer “has always been to mend the rift between modern humans and the more than human world. Through visual, written and spoken stories, I strive to capture the intimate rhythms of family bonds, shared challenges, and ancient behaviors that call us back to our wild selves. My photography and film reveal that the boundaries we imagine between ourselves and nature are illusions.
Jon Leibowitz has served as the CEO of Northeast Wilderness Trust since 2017—the only regional land trust in the Northeast that focuses exclusively on rewilding through the protection of forever-wild lands. The organization also exists to champion the idea of wilderness. With over 100,000 acres safeguarded today, the Wilderness Trust has ambitious plans over the next five years to continue scaling up its work on behalf of the wild.
Moderator: Terry Spahr. Terry is a first term member of the New Hampshire State House and serves on the Ways and Means committee. In 2016 Spahr left the business world. He researched, wrote and co-produced the award winning feature length environmental documentary, 8 Billion Angels, which premiered Internationally April 2021 and was broadcast nationally on PBS in 2023. Spahr is the founder and Executive Director of Earth Overshoot, a nonprofit dedicated to making nature and its resources central to all personal and public decision-making through targeted education and advocacy.