Respected land ethicist speaks at AGM 

Jim Drescher of Windhorse Farm in Lunenberg County was the keynote speaker of the Friends of Redtail Society's Annual General Meeting on March 13, 2010, taking place at the John P. Gammon Centre in Scotsburn.

Windhorse Farm, in the LaHave River watershed, is right in the heart of the Acadian Forest, Nova Scotia's indigenous forest and one of six endangered forests of North America. Although the entire region has been severely abused over the past few hundred years, especially since the advent of industrial clear cutting, there remain a few remnants of mature, fully functioning Acadian Forest; Windhorse Farm is one such place. Settled in 1840 by the Conrad Wentzell family, the woodlot has been harvested each year for the last 170 years and yet has the same volume of standing timber today as it had when the first axe bit wood in 1840. It is, in fact, the longest-standing experiment in sustainable forestry in Canada.

Conrad Wentzell had very particular ideas about forestry and he set up strict guidelines about what, and how much, could be harvested. The next four generations continued to harvest timber according to those same principles and practices for 150 years. In 1990, the last Wentzells of the farm were old and childless and they passed on the stewardship of the land to the Drescher family, who committed themselves to continuing the "experiment" in sustainability.

“Windhorse Farm celebrates sufficiency, stillness, impermanence, diversity, kindness, humour, natural wealth and the experience of nothing missing,” says Jim Dresher. Today Windhorse Farm is the Drescher family home and a temporary home for guests, visitors, students, interns, vacationers, and retreatants. It is also a place for people to let go of the busyness and habitual patterns of their lives and celebrate the magical simplicity of mind and nature. The purpose of Windhorse Farm is to protect, enrich and offer to others an earth stewardship container within which people can heal themselves and experience their deepest connection with all other beings.

“Windhorse Farm is a working model of the philosophy and ideals we are aspiring to achieve through our Sheltering Forests project,” says Society Chair Bernadette Romanowsky. “It is important to inspire hopefulness and Windhorse Farm demonstrates that it is possible to balance the needs of the human and non-human community.” The Society is currently fundraising to purchase 313 acres of naturally regenerating Acadian forest in Pictou County, and hopes to model a conscientious and respectful land ethic.

Read Press Coverage from the event

Speaker brings expertise and message to Friends of Redtail; The News, March 14, 2010

Society making strides toward purchasing land; The News, March 14, 2010