FYI... Stefanie Rixecker ECOFEM Coordinator ------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2000 15:42:29 -0500 From: John Suter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: New York Environmental Documentation Project State Archives Launches New York Environmental Documentation Project The second half of the twentieth century has seen human impact on the environment emerge as one of the most critical issues we face. It will be a central topic in the history of this era, but much of the documentation essential to a full and accurate telling of this extraordinary story is being lost. The stream of environmental concern and information that was a trickle a century ago in New York and the nation has become a river in flood. Concern for the conservation of natural resources and the preservation of scenic landscapes, wildlife habitats, and areas of natural beauty has grown dramatically in recent decades. Environmental sciences now provide us with theory, data, and new ways of looking at the wholeness and vulnerability of ecological systems, from the microscopic to the global. Government agencies at all levels administer a growing body of environmental law and regulation designed to safeguard public health and minimize or reverse environmental damage and the depletion of natural resources. Businesses and industries of every kind, communities, and individuals are being challenged to examine the ways they work and live and balance environmental concerns with other areas of business practice and lifestyle. The challenge is met by the responses of organizations and groups with widely varying viewpoints and interests. The documentary record of this complex and compelling chapter of New York's history is vast but dangerously uneven. Many organizations large and small that are concerned with environmental affairs have not devoted serious attention to the care of their historically valuable records, and few repositories collect in this critical area. The State Archives and Records Administration of the New York State Education Department has begun a statewide initiative, called the New York Heritage Documentation Project, that is working to ensure the equitable and comprehensive documentation and accessibility of all of New York's extraordinarily rich history and culture. Among the first topics to be addressed in this ambitious project is the field of environmental affairs and natural resources. At the heart of the project is the understanding that different organizations and groups¯governments, businesses, institutions, non-governmental organizations, community organizations, ethnic groups, and families¯have very different ways of thinking about and documenting their activities. Therefore, the State Archives is working with people from many sectors of the community concerned with the environment¯the people who create, care for, use, and are the subjects of historical records¯to identify the issues, people, organizations, and events that are most critical to document in New York. The project will work to protect and preserve some of the most important materials, and it will raise public awareness of the value of an equitable and inclusive historical record of environmental affairs. Beginning with environmental affairs, mental health and illness, and New York's Latino populations, the New York Heritage Documentation Project, with funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, is refining and testing an approach to documentation that can be adopted and applied by all sectors of New York society, from ethnic population groups and social movements to business and industry, from local and state governments to non-profit organizations. For more information about the New York Environmental Documentation Project, please contact John Suter at (518) 473-4258 or (607) 272-0576; email:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________ John Suter New York Heritage Documentation Project State Archives and Records Administration Home office: 21 Brooktondale Rd., Ithaca, NY 14850 607-272-0576 w, 272-0685 fax Albany office: 9C71 Cultural Education Center Albany, NY 12230 518-473-4258 [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________ ------- End of forwarded message ------- ************************************ Dr. Stefanie S. Rixecker, Senior Lecturer Environmental Management & Design Division Lincoln University, Canterbury PO Box 84 Aotearoa New Zealand E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fax: 64-03-325-3841 ************************************
