B3C's third community forum, on environment, set for Earth Day

Beaufort Three-Century Project’s (B3C) April community forum, the third in a year-long series— Ancestors to Future Generations: Look Back, Look Forward Beaufort, will focus on the Environment. The forum will be held from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 22, 2010 in the MacLean Hall auditorium (Building 12) at the Technical College of the Lowcountry, 921 Ribaut Road, Beaufort. It is free and open to the public.

“It is fitting that this forum will be conducted on Earth Day,” said B3C project coordinator Deborah Johnson. “It was originally scheduled the week before and we moved it back a week to take advantage of the April topic – the environment—coinciding with Earth Day and to provide continuity with a second B3C event in April, the tree symposium on April 29th – the following Thursday,” she said.

The Environment forum will take a land, water, and air approach. Like the two previous forums in this series, the first half will provide information about Beaufort’s past and future related to the topic and the second half will involve audience participation through a dialogue around setting a vision for the future.

A panel of local experts will help frame the discussion and includes:
Russell Berry, Regional Director, SC-DHEC Region 8 Environmental Quality Control (EQC) Office
Amanda Flake, Natural Resources Planner, Beaufort County
Dean Moss, General Manager, Beaufort-Jasper Water & Sewer Authority

Jeff Kidd, editor of the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet, will serve as moderator.

Participants will help answer questions such as: What is important from our past to remember, preserve, and honor? What do we value as Beaufortonians? What do we want Beaufort to be in the future? How do we overcome the challenges to reaching our vision?

Throughout the Beaufort Three-Century Project’s community documentation process, the area’s diverse environment plays out as a reoccurring theme in oral history interviews and other projects. “The environment plays a critical role in how people relate to the ‘sense of place’ that is Beaufort,” said Johnson. “We look forward to a rich discussion through this forum process,” she said.

This project is sponsored in part by The Humanities Council SC, a program of the National Endowment of the Humanities.

For more information about the Beaufort Three-Century Project call 489-1711; e-mail djohnson@islc.net; or visit www.beaufortthreecentury.org .