Get into the woods

Friday, October 28, 2011

Need something to do on Sunday? Get into the woods. No, not with Stephen Sondheim.

The Brookline Conservation Commission is sponsoring a morning hike beginning at Cider Mill Pond so that residents can get a look at two parcels of land the Conservation Commission recently purchased.

It’s a great idea. Too often residents object to, and even vote against, spending money on conservation land, and we think that is, in part at least, because it can’t be seen or held or … well, anything to do with the five senses. What we can’t see or feel or smell is less real to us than the money that will come out of our pockets to preserve it.

So getting people out onto the land is an important way to show them what their money is spent on and why it’s important.

Well, one could say, of course, that the land included in this hike has already been purchased and that’s true. But, we hope, eventually the Conervation Commission will seek to purchase more land to protect and if voters have seen the benefits by walking the land, they will, we believe, be more willing to part with a few cents on the tax rate.

The problem, of course, is that people who go on the hike will already, for the most part, be true believers. The naysayers, those who think trees just make good lumber, probably won’t go and that’s too bad.

But the Conservation Commission is still doing the right thing by sponsoring the hike. For everyone’s benefit, we hope that anyone who has ever voted against the purchase of conservation land will get out there on Sunday and take a hike.

It begins at 11:30 and you can bring your “well-behaved” dog.