To the editor:

Am I the only local resident appalled by the Westport Conservation Land Trust’s cutting all the trees along Adamsville Road just east of the pond? 

When I have walked home from Adamsville in the hot sun, I have depended upon the shade of those trees.  They welcomed plenty of birds, from crows and robins to goldfinch. Rarer kingfishers fly up the creek feeding the pond.

Am I too literal, thinking that Conservation requires conserving trees and bird-cover?

Perhaps I didn’t understand the emphasis in Land Trust is not trees, but Land.

Am I alone in preferring tree-lined roads, now rarer? Since the Conservation Trust has not conserved trees, the place looks more like every suburban soccer field or track, or even like a potential mall carpark.  Even the classier parking lots (BCC) keep trees to shade patrons.  Any trees now planted will take half a century to reach the prominence of those cut.

Globally, bird species are dying, often from seaside human intrusions, which we witness even from conservationists.   On the other side of the village, down River Road, new huge summer “cottages” decimate bird cover and erode birdlife for decades.  But that is the owners’ prerogative, not trumpeted as conservators. Arguably,  the conservators have limited themselves to a dozen roadside maples.

Yours in amazement,

Alan Powers

Westport