Zoe Turner-Debs (Photo provided)

KEENE — Zoe Turner-Debs has been selected for the Adirondack Land Trust’s 2021 Internship for the Future of the Adirondacks. She will work this summer to apply geographic information system (GIS) skills in the field and in the office.

Originally from Providence, Rhode Island, Turner-Debs will complete a bachelor’s degree in Earth science and society from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie in June, and she plans to pursue a Master of Forestry degree centered around conservation management. She completed a semester at the School for International Training in Quito, Ecuador, studying development, politics and languages. She has been a GIS teaching assistant for three semesters and was a research fellow at Vassar in summer 2020. In that role, she gathered and formatted data for the town of Poughkeepsie’s greenhouse gas inventory for the New York Climate Smart Communities program. In 2019, she was an invasive species management intern for the 415-acre Vassar Ecological Preserve. In her spare time, she is a member of the Hudson Valley Mappers, participating in OpenStreetMap mapathons, and is part of Vassar’s Students for Equitable Environmental Decisions.

This summer Turner-Debs will work with land trust staff to update and improve their maps of conservation areas. Her work will include using GPS technology in the field to locate boundaries and structures on private lands under conservation easement, followed by processing and organizing the data. She will also use GIS to support an Adirondack Land Trust project to identify and understand places with high potential to provide lasting conservation and public benefit.

The Adirondack Land Trust Internship for the Future of the Adirondacks was founded by conservationists Barbara Glaser and the late Clarence Petty (1905-2009), with the assistance of Clarence’s son Ed. For information on how to support the Adirondack Land Trust internship, contact Nancy Van Wie, director of philanthropy, at nancy.vanwie@adirondacklandtrust.org.

The mission of the Adirondack Land Trust is to forever conserve the forests, farmlands, waters and wild places that advance the quality of life of our communities and the ecological integrity of the Adirondacks. The land trust has protected 26,710 acres since its founding in 1984.