Richard Amper, advocate for Long Island's pine barrens, dies at 81

Richard Amper, an advocate for Long Island’s natural places for more than 40 years, died Monday morning at 81.

Amper, who was known as Dick, joined the effort to protect Long Island’s pine barrens from development in the 1980s. He was running a public relations firm at the time and a group of environmentalists approached him with their concern about development in the rare and fragile ecosystem.

"He took off and ran with it," his younger brother, Tom Amper, of Bellerose, told Newsday.

The effort culminated in a law preserving more than 105,000 acres of pitch pine and oak forest, and red maple and Atlantic white cedar swamplands. He went on to serve as executive director of the Long Island Pine Barrens Society for decades.

"Dick Amper was a giant of a man and a relentless advocate for the Long Island pine barrens," Elina Alayeva, the president of the society, said in a statement. "He redefined what environmental advocacy could look like, showing us how to be both principled and strategic, and combining deep commitment with a sharp, disciplined approach that proved essential in securing lasting protections for the pine barrens."

Tom Amper said his brother died of a heart condition while in hospice.

Amper championed many other environmental causes, including banning toxic chemicals from children’s toys, protecting drinking and groundwater, and curbing nitrogen pollution in local waterways.

He and his wife, Robin Hopkins Amper, who also fought for the pine barrens, lived in Forest Hills and Melville before settling in Lake Panamoka in the early 1970s, where they successfully opposed a housing development planned for the lake’s shore. His wife died in 2019.

Amper earned the admiration from other advocates for the environment and from politicians.

Robert DeLuca, president of the Group for the East End, said: "Dick was always willing to put it all on the line for the long-term benefit of our fragile natural environment and the protection of the clean water we all need to preserve our Long Island way of life. He was dedicated, creative, unyielding, energizing and focused, with remarkable media skills, and an unbreakable conviction to achieving the highest standards of conservation." 

Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine said in a statement, "His work preserving open space and clean water is legendary, and because of his efforts, generations to come will have the pine barrens and thousands of acres of open space in their backyard."

John Turner, a co-founder of the Pine Barrens Society who worked with Amper for many years, wrote, "Anyone who cares about nature on Long Island, her preserves and open spaces, and the plants and animals that call these places home, owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to Dick Amper."

Amper was known for being brash and irascible when defending the causes he believed in. 

He was also "very funny and very sociable," Tom Amper told Newsday. "He was really fun to be with." 

"Dick was as much as a force of nature as a pine barrens wildfire," Turner added, "as unique as the globally rare dwarf pine plains, and as dependable in his commitment to the cause as the call of a whip-poor-will on a moonlit night in June. He will be missed."

In addition to his brother, Amper is survived by two sisters, Julie Amper, of Mattituck, and Emily Amper Murphy, of Texas; his sister-in-law, Susan Amper; and three nephews. Funeral services will be private.