Community Corner

David Leff Honored by Conservation Group

Collinsville resident lauded for work as author, former deputy commissioner with DEP.

Submitted release 

David Leff, former Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection has received a 2012 “Special Recognition Award” from the Connecticut Association of Conservation and Inland Wetland Commissions.

A long-time supporter of CACIWC’s mission and goals, David had a 28-year career with the state of Connecticut as an agriculture and environmental policy advisor to the state legislature and as deputy commissioner of the then Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, where he was primarily responsible for our state parks, forests, fisheries, and wildlife.

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An unfortunate degeneration of his cervical spine forced him into early retirement.

Not willing to allow his condition to interfere with his love for the New England environment, David actively pursued a new career in writing, where he continues to promote conservation issues by focusing on the connection of people

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to their communities and the natural environment. His first book, The Last Undiscovered Place, is a memoir about one’s efforts to rediscover our own neighborhoods. His second nonfiction book, Deep Travel: In Thoreau’s Wake on the Concord and Merrimack, takes us on a canoe trip following the route of the great naturalist. In this work, David helps us see places both the context of time and space, and helps us examine the wide range of phenomena that contributes to our environments.

David received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1975 and graduated from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 1978, passing the bar exam that same year. CACIWC is pleased to recognize his continued efforts to preserve and promote awareness of Connecticut’s many important habitats by selecting him as the recipient of this Special Recognition Award.

 


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