Remembering Teatown friend, Malcolm Netburn

Teatown would like to recognize and remember Malcolm Netburn, a member of Teatown’s Advisory Board who passed earlier this month.

As a lover of nature and advocate for environmental protection, his decades-long dedication to public service prioritized human connection to natural spaces. He valued nature’s ability to nurture the mind and spirit. Proud of his grandchildren attending Teatown’s summer camp, Malcolm talked often of the importance of fostering a love of nature in children. He was a visionary, a poet, a systems thinker, and simply the kind of human we were just so lucky to have in our orbit.

On a more personal note, Malcolm and I first met a few years ago through our shared work in the Village of Briarcliff Manor, where he served on the Village Board of Trustees. He became a mentor to me, and ultimately a friend. He later said he knew we’d get along because of “our shared affection for skunk cabbage.” We’d often meet up and walk along the Pocantico River that flows through Briarcliff. On these walks, we’d talk about practical ideas for enhancing suburban green spaces and making nature more accessible to residents, but our conversations invariably meandered onto bigger topics like how worldviews shape our relationship with the natural world, the role of nature in community placemaking, the lessons we have to learn from our non-human companions with whom we share this planet.

I will miss these walks, these conversations, his poems in reverence of skunk cabbage, his thoughtful words that held so much meaning. Here at Teatown, we will strive to live up to Malcolm’s enduring vision of a greener, deeper, more connected nature for all.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Amy Karpati, Ph.D.
Senior Science Advisor