puffin in flight

Climate Change & Conservation eNews

Communications

Saddle Peak
Estes Valley Land Trust

Land trust breakfast focuses on climate change

This breakfast was last year—but it's a great idea for your land trust in the future (virtual or not). With Covid-19, virtual breakfasts are happening more—and that's allowing for personal conversations with people from all over the region.

The breakfast focused on the potential effects of climate change in the Rocky Mountain West.

The announcement stated: Are we experiencing a warming climate and if so, what affect will it have on extreme weather such as droughts and floods? Could warmer temperatures result in longer fire seasons and catastrophic wildfires? How will these disturbances affect our regional ecosystem?

“Our educational breakfasts allow land trust members up-close access to scientific professionals that can explain our complex Rocky Mountain environment,” said Jeffrey Boring, Executive Director of the Estes Valley Land Trust. “We’re thrilled to have Dr. Monique Rocca, Associate Professor, Colorado State University and Jeff Lukas, Associate Scientist, University of Colorado Boulder, as our keynote speakers.”

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Sustainable Solutions
Forterra

Sequestering carbon and enhancing our local landscapes

How are you working with local community groups, businesses, and partners to ramp up climate change impacts? You may have to restructure activities to meet social distancing and safety requirements until there is a Covid-19 vaccine, but land trusts are being creative.

Last year, almost 50 businesses and individuals offset their carbon footprints with ECC [Evergreen Carbon Capture] by planting 4,038 conifer trees, which will absorb 20,190 tons of CO2 over the next 100 years. Though only a drop in the bucket compared to what our native forests were once capable of, every tree planted and cared for provides a myriad of benefits like wildlife habitat, and improved water and air quality, which bring our landscapes one step closer to the ecological function of their pasts.

ECC offers the unique opportunity for partners to join our tree planting efforts at volunteer work parties. This year our field partners from Adopt-a-Stream FoundationDirt CorpsForterraFriends of the Burke Gilman TrailGreen Kirkland PartnershipGreen Redmond PartnershipGreen River CoalitionGreen Seattle Partnership, and Stewardship Partners led 11 events for 367 volunteers to plant trees throughout the Puget Sound region, from Auburn to Marysville….

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Campaign Video Screengrab
screenshot

Regenerative agriculture: Campaign for Jalama

The land trust is launching a campaign to acquire Jalama Canyon Ranch where they will create a critical center for regenerative agriculture…leading to a healthier food system, drawing carbon from the atmosphere, increasing biodiversity, strengthening communities, and improving farmer and rancher livelihoods.

Jalama Canyon Ranch will model regenerative agriculture at scale in a financially viable way; serving as a center for education and training, scientific research, and removing the barriers to rapid and broad adoption of regenerative agriculture locally, regionally and globally.

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© Ron Leonetti

A natural path for U.S. climate action

When it comes to the impact and potential of land management on global warming, everything really is bigger in Texas. Unless you’re talking about agricultural lands—then everything is bigger in Iowa. Or if you’re talking about the impact of urban trees, that’s biggest in Florida—though it’s also pretty big in Texas.

Across the United States, in fact, land management can have a really big effect on the climate. A new study examines the country’s potential to implement natural solutions—such as growing taller trees, improving soil health, protecting grasslands and restoring coastal wetlands—to increase carbon storage and reduce greenhouse gas pollution.  Essentially, turbo-charging nature to address global warming, while also providing natural benefits for people, water and wildlife…

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Blue Newsletter Cover
Blue Mountain Land Trust

Featuring regenerative agriculture and climate change in their newsletter

Your local land trust doesn't have to come up with all of the content itself. Often you can receive permission to post other's articles. Blue Mountain Land Trust does this by featuring concepts and then repurposing them in their newsletters and eNews. The key is to focus on shared values and to continue to weave climate change into the problems—and the solutions—you are addressing. Check out this very nicely done newsletter with a conversation about climate change and agriculture.

Blue Mountain Land Trust, WA

Agriculture can be an important part of the climate solution and land trusts can help their communities understand that. The Blue Mountain Land Trust provided information about how that is the case, stating on their website:

“In our last issue, we reprinted Drawdown’s chapter on conservation agriculture. In this issue, we’re reprinting its chapter on regenerative agriculture. Other Drawdown chapters will be reprinted in future issues.

Thank you to Paul Hawken and his associates at Project Drawdown for permission to reprint these chapters.

If you’d like to learn more about regenerative agriculture and the role it plays in carbon sequestration, here’s a recommended reading list:

The Soil Will Save Us, Kristin Ohlson
Cows Save the Planet, Judith D. Schwartz
The Grazing Revolution: A Radical Pan to Save the Earth, Allan Savory
Restoration Agriculture, Mark Shephard
Grass, Soil and Hope: A Journey through Carbon Country, Courtney White
Growing a Revolution: Bringing our Soil Back to Life, David R. Montgomery
Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agriculture, Gabe Brown

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Snowfield At Sunset
Joshua's Trust

Climate change informational talks for all ages

This small land trust has hosted a series of community conversations about climate change, partnering with folks who know how to connect to the audience. The press has been favorable and responsive. This might be something for your local land trust to consider as well. Landowners telling stories about how they are seeing the changes is another great way to bring the climate conversation "home."

Joshua’s Trust and the Connecticut Museum of Natural History co-sponsored an informational session given by Dr. Anji Seth. Temperatures of 70-degrees on Jan. 12 felt wonderful, but left many wondering if extremes in temperature are the new normal.

“We are doing these three sessions because many are concerned and want to know what they can do locally. We want to ameliorate our climate anxiety,” Nancy Silander, JT trustee, said…

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SOlar on Office
Genesee Valley Conservancy

Office upgrades: Going solar

You and your local land trust can demonstrate that change starts at home. Some people can buy into community solar, while others may install solar on their buildings. It's also an area where your land trust could advocate for policies to assist with more affordable energy conservation efforts—just like land trusts advocate for conservation funding.

Historic 1 Main Street, built in 1835, has received its most recent modernization this fall with the addition of solar panels to provide clean electricity.

Building owners Meg and Billy Lloyd partnered with Genesee Valley Conservancy to install the photovoltaic system that will offset 100% of the land trust’s electric use. They acknowledge that “while the land trust works to protect habitat, open space, and farmland in the Genesee Valley, a large supply of power is needed to run the operations of this work: computers, printers, lights, modems, etc.”

The up-front costs were shared by the building owners and the Conservancy, as both will benefit from the project. The Conservancy will see an immediate reduction in monthly utility bills and after six years will break even on the initial investment and begin seeing a net-savings.

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Climate Change In Our Community
Freeport Conservation Trust

Climate change in our community: Impacts and response

Land trusts across the country are helping to bring community members together to talk about climate change, the need for action, and various solutions.

In January, Freeport Conservation Trust partnered with a local arts group, Freeport Arts & Cultural Alliance, and local contributors, for a presentation of writing and art from the book A Dangerous New World: Maine Voices on the Climate Crisis. They then came together to discuss how people felt climate change is impacting them and what they can do about it. Partnering like this, with people who are local, can be very powerful.

Last year, they hosted a conversation at their annual meeting about how the impacts of climate change are being felt locally. They stated on their website:

“Casco Bay is warmer, the sea level is rising, and annual precipitation and extreme weather events have increased. It is critical that our community understands the impacts of climate change and takes steps to respond.”

Check out the presentation and how they related it to what people know and care about.

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Gas Flare
Orjan F. Ellingvag/Corbis via Getty Images

Methane is a hard-hitting greenhouse gas. Now scientists say we’ve dramatically underestimated how much we’re emitting

“Scientists and governments alike have been greatly underestimating emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane from oil and gas operations, according to new research published Wednesday, suggesting both a threat and also an opportunity to curb leaks of the hard-hitting molecule.

The contention emerges in a new study in the influential journal Nature, which draws on samples of ancient air extracted from within the Greenland ice sheet to measure levels of atmospheric methane before humans started burning fossil fuels…”

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Poppies And Solar Panels
Mrs. Green's World

Tucson Electric Power Series

Check out Tucson Electric Power's (TEP) podcast series.

Tucson Electric Power (TEP) provides safe, reliable and increasingly sustainable electric service to approximately 425,000 customers in Southern Arizona. The company is on track to surpass its own ambitious renewable energy goals by expanding use of wind and solar power. TEP is a local leader in community service, volunteerism and economic development efforts, with energy efficiency programs that help customers to better manage their energy costs. It is with great pride that we spotlight TEP programs and services.

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