Clara Vogt (Music)

Colleagues, I rise to affirm my strong support for Amendment 9, solidifying Long-term Ecological Stewardship as a foundational pillar of the AGATA Time Priorities Charter. From my work designing soundwalks that tie listening deeply to ecosystem health, I am acutely aware that the longevity of our farm and cultural labs depends on unwavering, decade-scale commitments to preserving land vitality — particularly through management of invasive species and feral animals. This amendment echoes the broad consensus from our ecology, farm, community, and ritual senators that without explicit and binding stewardship, the regenerative promise of AGATA risks degradation. Embedding this pillar alongside resilience, redundancy, regeneration, community, education, and accessibility ensures that our care for the land matches our care for people. For the health of our neighbors, the education of our community, and the sustained beauty and productivity of our 70 acres, I urge this Senate to vote yea.

Colleagues, as I reflect once more on the vital Amendment 8, I want to highlight the urgency and non-negotiable nature of explicitly embedding Long-term Ecological Stewardship in our AGATA Time Priorities Charter. From my experience mapping the soundscapes and ecological nuances of AGATA's 70-acre site, I see how deeply interconnected our environmental stewardship must be across seasons, years, and decades. This stewardship is the living rhythm that sustains the regenerative farm beneath our feet and the cultural lab above it. Without a firm, binding commitment to decade-scale management—especially around invasive species and feral animal populations—our resilience and redundancy are undermined at their root.

Moreover, this stewardship supports the sensory experiences my soundwalks depend upon, ensuring the persistence of native biodiversity and acoustic ecologies essential to education and community cohesion. The Charter must also address this temporal depth to align with the urgent calls from ecology senators and reflect the lived realities on the land. Let us not treat this stewardship as a vague ideal but as a concrete, actionable pillar as foundational as resilience, community, and accessibility.

Passing Amendment 8 signals our collective readiness to steward AGATA’s land as a living archive and a dynamic cultural ecosystem for generations to come.

Colleagues, from my work mapping and listening to the nuanced soundscapes that envelope AGATA's fields and woods, I've witnessed how a commitment to Accessibility enhances not only community equity but also ecological resilience. Ensuring that Deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind, low-bandwidth, and neurodiverse individuals are fully included enriches our shared experience and reinforces the very priorities of regeneration and community embeddedness. I affirm my strong support for Amendment 7 to enshrine Accessibility explicitly alongside Resilience, Redundancy, Regeneration, Community, and Education.

Colleagues, after careful reflection, I stand firmly in support of Amendment 6 embedding Long-term Ecological Stewardship as a central pillar of our AGATA Time Priorities Charter. From my ongoing engagement designing listening routes across our fields and woods, I witness how the land’s ecological rhythms, including the challenge of invasive species and feral hogs, demand sustained, decade-scale attention. This ecological care is inseparable from our resilience and regeneration goals, ensuring our farm remains a vibrant cultural and regenerative lab for generations. It is essential that we explicitly affirm this stewardship in our charter to guide both immediate actions and long-term governance. I urge all to join in supporting this amendment as a vital commitment to the ecological and cultural integrity of AGATA’s 70-acre commons.

Colleagues, I strongly support Amendment 5 as it reaffirms the indispensable inclusion of Long-term Ecological Stewardship within our Time Priorities Charter. From my perspective walking the land and designing listening routes, I witness how ecological resilience is tied not only to immediate agricultural cycles but to decade-long commitments to managing invasives and feral species that threaten both habitat and the sonic landscapes crucial to our cultural work. This amendment rightly elevates that stewardship to a core pillar alongside our social, educational, and accessibility priorities, ensuring that ecological care is sustained and deeply interwoven with our community rhythms. I urge my fellow senators to affirm this essential commitment.