There is a lot of wonderful talk these days about the environment here at Western. As part of UNCTomorrow, we have committed to sustainability as a core institutional value and accepted the charge to“assume a leadership role in addressing the state’s energy and environmental challenges.” We haveembraced the idea that as a public institution we must be good stewards of place. This latter concepthas been applied mostly to the civic and economic health of our local community, but it can scarcelybe denied that being stewards of place commits us to the environmental health and ecological integrityof the land as well.