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Sanctuary magazine
President's Message
A Stroll Through the Archives
by Laura Johnson
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Go Back
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This issue of Sanctuary celebrates the magazine's 30th anniversary, and we've chosen to mark this milestone by republishing a collection of articles on an array of topics that the editor selected from issues long past as well as more recent.
Our anniversary issue gives me an excuse to ponder the attributes of Sanctuary magazine that have made it important to Mass Audubon members and many others over the years. Certainly, what distinguishes Sanctuary is the quality of the writing, starting with essays by longtime editor John Mitchell and extending to our many contributing writers and poets.
Among those I would particularly like to acknowledge are the current field editors, Thomas Conuel and Gayle Goddard-Taylor, and staff members who frequently contribute to the journal including naturalists Chris Leahy and Joe Choiniere, ornithologists Wayne Petersen and Simon Perkins, conservation scientist Robert Buchsbaum, and associate editor Ann Prince. Many of the Mass Audubon staff are not only wonderful birders, educators, and activists, but they also have a gift for writing. Over the years, they have inspired readers on an array of subjects from Mass Audubon priorities on Beacon Hill to the secret lives of fungi and fish. Dedicated Sanctuary staff also include Betty Graham, who retired after over a decade with the magazine, and current managing editor Rose Murphy.
A strength of the publication is the selection of topics and issues that educate, inform, and inspire our readers in an in-depth way. In recent years, we have written about land and stewardship issues and about specific habitats—mountains, rivers, wetlands, coastline. We have published articles about birds, of course, but also about the ecological footprint of food production and nature in the city.
Often we have been ahead of the times; back in 1984 we devoted an issue to global warming, and in the mid-1990s we covered the loss of free play. We also weigh in on the major local environmental issues of the day, such as the battle over a proposed development near Walden Pond, resolved with the creation of Walden Woods. While we have not shied away from controversy or tough issues, Sanctuary has also consistently provided articles that are simply inspiring stories about the pleasure that close observation and real knowledge of nature can provide.
Even in acknowledging the many wonderful facets of Sanctuary, we know that times have changed in ways unimaginable thirty years ago, and we are not immune to those changes. As print media seeks ways to reinvent itself, we too have to be realistic about the pressures of rising costs and changing readership. Therefore, after much consideration, starting in 2010, the magazine will be published three times during the year rather than four, and, at the same time, we will expand the content on our website.
We thank you for your continued support, which enables us to make extraordinary progress toward our shared purpose of protecting the nature of Massachusetts. Achieving this goal has become more complicated in the past thirty years but even more worthy of your sustained effort and stalwart support.
Laura Johnson, President
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