Earth Festival 2014, presented by Otsego County Conservation Association in collaboration with the Otsego County Chamber of Commerce and Central NY Mobile Marketing, will take place on Saturday, April 12 from 11am-3pm at the Milford Central School gymnasium. Master Gardeners of Cornell Cooperative Extension Schoharie and Otsego Counties will host Spring Garden Day in conjunction with Earth Festival, kicking off with a free presentation by Barbara Melera, president and CEO of the D. Landreth Seed Company – the oldest seed house in America – at 9:30am.

Now in its 9th year, Earth Festival is an annual event that brings together the region’s environmental community along with vendors and exhibitors that offer earthfriendly products or services. It is an avenue for people in Otsego County to learn about and support the various environmental organizations and the activities that are taking place in our region.

DOAS has been a participant in Earth Festival since the first event in 2005. We help to kick off Earth Festival each year with a pre-festival Early Morning Bird Walk at a regional state park or state forest location. Our carpool leaves promptly at 8am from the school parking lot. Through the years, one of our most popular activities at the event has been a letter-writing campaign where people can learn about a topical conservation issue, modify template letters to provide their voice and opinions, then have their letter printed and mailed to our elected political representatives. Our letter this year will be to voice opposition to proposed 30 year eagle permits for wind energy companies.

From the beginning, Earth Festival has always offered avenues to recycle various items that might not be easily recycled locally. This year’s event again will offer the opportunity for people to bring their  confidential documents for shredding and recycling in the ConfiData Shredder from11am-2pm. The event also offers collection of other items, such as clean white styrofoam, fishing line, shoes, cd’s and vcr tapes, plastic bags, and more. Last year, the event began promoting TerraCycle – the ability to recycle a number of other materials like cheese wrappers, cereal bags, permanent markers, glue containers, etc. For a complete list of recycling opportunities available at this year’s Earth Festival event, view the OCCA website at www.occainfo.org.

This year, in addition to our letter of opposition to the 30 year permits, DOAS will provide a display about our Golden Eagle Telemetry Project as well as information about educator resources (Audubon Adventures), upcoming programs and the 2014 Summer Camp. Information will also be available about our special events including the 2nd Annual “Birds, Brunch and Beer” event and our June birding trip to the Adirondacks! Please be sure to stop by and say Hi!