The Martha’s Vineyard Commission, heralded as a unique and powerful regional planning organization, often the source of controversy, celebrated a quiet 40th anniversary this year.

An Island-based group that includes fishermen, a documentary filmmaker and a world-renowned oceanographer are leading an unprecedented effort to create three marine protected areas in waters south of the Vineyard.

By the year 2050, Massachusetts needs 52 per cent of the commonwealth to be permanently conserved as open space.

Currently, a quarter of the bay state’s five million acres is developed, a quarter is protected and the rest is up for grabs.

In a case that has been closely watched by conservation groups on the Vineyard, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled Thursday that a plot of forestland in the Berkshires cannot be taxed.

In Massachusetts, land used by a charitable organization qualifies for a tax exemption under state law. But a recent case in the town of Hawley, now going before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, could have wide implications.

It would seem self-evident that a key goal of conservation is to protect land from the effects of too much human interference. Certainly that was Teddy Roosevelt’s vision a century ago when one the country’s best-known hunters became its most ardent conservationist.