Around Town

New Canaan Nature Center, Town, Businesses and Organizations Mark Earth Day 2014 [VIDEOS]

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“Where have those flowers and butterflies all gone

That science may have staked the future on?”

—from Robert Frost’s “Pod of the Milkweed”

 

The migration of monarch butterflies through New Canaan—and everywhere else along the East Coast—is happening less frequently in recent years, to the point where some are calling the insects’ once widely anticipated journey between the Northeast/Canada and Mexico “endangered.”

The major reason, experts say, is a lack of milkweed, which monarch caterpillars feed on. “The butterflies can go to all kinds of flowers for nectar, but the caterpillars can only eat milkweed plants. They’re having a hard time with loss of bio-habitat, so we are encouraging people in town to plant these free milkweed seeds,” Susan Bergen, a volunteer for the New Canaan Garden Club, said Tuesday morning from a table inside New Canaan Library. There, she and Jen Rayher (nee Sillo, a 1994 New Canaan High School graduate), director of membership and volunteers at the New Canaan Nature Center, handed out the seeds (“Got Milkweed?” on the packet) to mark Earth Day here in town. It’s one of several initiatives and events planned by the Nature Center for the next week, which New Canaan’s highest elected official today declared “Environmental Awareness Week 2014Week” (see video below).

Faces of New Canaan

Faces of New Canaan: Micaela Porta

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More than one New Canaanite urged us to talk to Micaela Porta, co-founder of Pesticide-Free New Canaan, for a possible article here on our local news site. The nonprofit organization’s website is itself a wonderfully concise resource for environment- and wellness-minded residents (as is this new, informative newsletter from the New Canaan Conservation Commission, a group of which Porta is a member). In researching Pesticide-Free New Canaan I came across this Q&A, which does a very nice job of reviewing the nonprofit organization’s history and mission, with useful and succinctly stated tips and checklists for residents who want to pursue organic garden and lawn care (asking, for example, “What are the top three things I can do to protect my loved ones and myself from harmful chemicals in their gardens and lawns?” and “Do you have any recommendations for budget-friendly, safer, pesticide-free strategies?”)

[selfie]

Just as we met Thursday morning and sat down at that window table in Dunkin Donuts on Elm Street, New Canaan’s Beth Jones popped over to say a quick hello, and when I told her I was meeting Miki (as Porta is known) for an installment of “Resident Expert” on NewCanaanite.com, the immediate response was: “Thank goodness we have such an expert resident. She’s a treasure.”

During our conversation—transcribed in full below—I got a strong sense of what Jones meant. (Ultimately, I’m putting this in “Faces of New Canaan” instead of “Resident Expert,” but it could’ve been either one.)

We did discuss Pesticide-Free New Canaan, which Porta founded with town resident Heather Lauver: its history, status, place in New Canaan, science, support, partners.