The Vineyard Conservation Society executive director Brendan O’Neill has been named the 2008 recipient of the Nicholas A. Robinson Environmental Award for his placed-based environmental work on Martha’s Vineyard. The award recognizes significant public service contributions in the environmental field by a graduate of the environmental legal studies program at Pace University School of Law in New York.

Mr. O’Neill shares this year’s honor with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., also a Pace graduate.

It is one of the enduring pieces of Martha’s Vineyard lore: you take your recycling to the transfer station, separate it as directed into containers for plastics, paper, cardboard, aluminum and so on, and then at the end of the day it all gets tossed in together and dumped.

Like glass, the myth recycles endlessly. But it is a myth.

There are times when it’s hard to see the environment for the trees.

Look across the Martha’s Vineyard landscape and that mantle of woods, growing where once the land was substantially denuded, and things look pretty good.

But beneath that green canopy, as Vineyard Conservation Society executive director Brendan O’Neill points out, are 78 parcels of land, ranging in size between 20 acres and 100 acres, which remain undeveloped, but also unprotected from development.

There are six parcels of 100 acres or more.

On May 31, the Polly Hill Arboretum and the Vineyard Conservation Society will welcome Paul Tukey, founder of SafeLawns.org, an international coalition promoting environmentally friendly lawn care, for a lively discussion on lawns.

Conservation Society Walk

Explores Seven Gates Farm

The Vineyard Conservation Society winter walks program, focusing on the Island’s agricultural heritage, will continue on Sunday, Feb. 10, beginning at 1:30 p.m., with a guided walk at the 1,100 acres of protected open space at Seven Gates Farm.