The APCC annual meeting this past Sunday celebrated our 55th year, highlighted the many achievements of the past year and looked ahead at the challenges that remain. We were honored to have the Honorable Lt. Governor of the Commonwealth Kim Driscoll as our keynote speaker. Lt. Governor Driscoll spoke of the importance of APCC in shaping the region’s response to the needs of the environment of Cape Cod. I was perhaps most struck, though, by the Lt. Governor’s comment that, and I am paraphrasing here, Massachusetts’ problems are ours to solve and that we can’t wait for someone to come to our rescue.
I took the Lt. Governor’s underlying sentiment as a call to action: that Massachusetts has the human, intellectual and creative resources and capacity to chart our own future. The future of Cape Cod is ours to determine. The degree to which we do a sufficient job protecting our remaining open space, protect and restore our surface waters and wetland resources, and protect critical drinking water supplies is on us collectively and individually. Sure, we will need some help accessing state resources and changing some rules to account for the unique nature of our hydrogeology and our vulnerability to sea level change, but the primary job is ours to undertake.
What this all means is that the need for APCC has never been greater, nor has it ever been more important for each of us to be engaged in local politics. Many of the issues we care most about, from development policy, land use and protection, and water quality get decided in small meetings with little public input. We need to collectively make sure that there are voices speaking for the environment in every one of these meetings, at town meetings, and at the ballot box. Lt. Governor Driscoll had it right; what kind of future we leave our kids reflects what we are willing to do now.
There is more work to be done. Are you with us?
