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Empowering women farmers and landowners to protect their land and embrace conservation
“The future of agriculture is increasingly female.
43 percent of U.S. farmland —nearly 388 million acres— is now farmed or co- farmed by women. Many of these women have a strong conservation ethic and are deeply committed to healthy farmland, farm families, and farm communities.
But women face gender-related barriers to managing their land for long-term sustainability…”
Finding the Mother Tree: An evening with Susan Simard
7:00-8:30 PM EST
In her first book, Finding the Mother Tree, Simard brings us into her world, the intimate world of the trees, in which she brilliantly illuminates the fascinating and vital truths — that trees are not simply the source of timber or pulp, but are a complicated, interdependent circle of life; that forests are social, cooperative creatures connected through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own.
The Western New York Land Conservancy is thrilled to host Dr. Simard for a live-streamed virtual event. Finding the Mother Tree: An Evening with Suzanne Simard will include a presentation on her pioneering work and a conversation.
Crystal Spring Farm Community Solar Project
For the [over] 25 years BTLT has owned and managed Crystal Spring Farm, a 331-acre property dynamic in its agricultural impact, community programs, recreational opportunities, and ecological value. As BTLT staff and resources have grown, so has our capacity to manage the many aspects of this incredible property…
Capacity: 78.65 Kilowatts (KW), 286 photovoltaic solar panels, 275 watts/panel
Host: Crystal Spring Farm, with concurrence of the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust (landowner).
Participants: Crystal Spring Farm plus seven other Brunswick families without access to solar electricity where they live.
Largest market-based regenerative grasslands partnership in the U.S.
Panorama Organic Grass-Fed Meats to certify one million acres of wildlife habitat with the National Audubon’s Conservation Ranching Initiative.
The Audubon Conservation Ranching Initiative seeks to enhance the stewardship of grasslands for the benefit of birds. Birds have suffered significant decline over the past 50 years due to loss of U.S. grasslands to widespread development.
This initiative empowers consumers to support programs that restore bird populations via conservation practices by selectively purchasing beef nationwide from Audubon-certified farms and ranches, including Panorama Organic and other participating brands. The Audubon certification seal carries broad market appeal among consumers who care about the environment.
Weekly Planet: Nature is heart of our recovery
If you’ve had a long relationship with nature, you may wonder “am I seeing fewer fireflies, butterflies, and birds than when I was a kid?” Sadly, the answer is “yes.” Since 1970, butterfly populations have plummeted 35%, amphibian populations have declined by 30% and bird populations have decreased by 29% equating to three billion fewer birds since the year I was born. While these facts are sobering, the good news is that conservation action has solutions. As wildlife populations have been spiraling downward, wetland bird populations have been increasing.
Why? Because tens of millions of dollars have been invested in the protection and restoration of our nation’s wetlands, the same wetlands that help filter and clean our waters, store carbon, and absorb floodwaters—by and large, making our communities healthier and safer…
Climate tip: solar
[Recently, the Peconic Land Trust] celebrated National Cut Your Energy Cost Day with a look at our own energy costs. The Peconic Land Trust has been working to cut its energy costs through the use of solar panels—which is both economically and environmentally friendly. The net cost of solar is significantly lower than the current cost of utility power on Long Island, $0.09/ kWH to $0.21/ kWh respectively.
During the renovation of the Southampton office building in 2017, 32 solar panels were installed on the roof by GreenLogic. Since then, the panels have produced over 45,000 kWh of energy at a savings of more than $10,000! Power on Long Island comes from a combination of sources including coal and natural gas…
Building more resilient human and natural communities
Stronger storms, increased rainfall, and periodic droughts are all part of our new normal. Conservation Trust for North Carolina is rising to the challenge our changing climate brings by partnering with affected communities to identify ways that healthy lands can better support and protect people. Including land conservation in larger plans for reducing the carbon output of our state and lessening impacts to communities, we can build a resilient North Carolina.
Conserving land for climate resilience is a top priority for all North Carolinians. Informed by climate science data, we know that taking steps to protect highly resilient property along the Blue Ridge Parkway is valuable to communities long into the future, even as natural areas, wildlife habitat and species change in response to the climate. We are ready to take this purposeful approach….
How to Solar Now
Land trusts are realizing that they must support renewable energy if we are going to have a chance at saving the plants, animals, and communities from the worst of climate change.
This web-based interactive tool combines mapped information with education and guidance to help your community proactively plan for smart solar energy development. Using Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping layers, the tool identifies communities’ natural resources—such as forests, agricultural lands, and wetlands—and overlays them with important characteristics for solar development, such as gentle slopes and distance to transmission lines. It enables communities considering planning and zoning for future solar development, evaluating proposals by developers or identifying preferred sites for solar to make smart decisions that bring clean energy to residents while minimizing impacts to natural and community assets…
Medford Spring Grassland Conservation
“Grasslands store one-third of the Earth’s carbon, and just one acre of grassland can store an estimated 50 tonnes of carbon or more. Yet, in the U.S., over one million acres of grassland are still converted each year, which has the potential to release 50%-70% of the carbon they hold as carbon dioxide (CO₂).
The Medford Spring grasslands in southeastern Colorado are facing an imminent threat of conversion to cropland given its soils are suitable for farming, and cropland rental rates for winter wheat, milo, sorghum, alfalfa, and other row crops, are more than five times pastureland rates in Bent County, CO. A permanent conservation easement will preserve the grasslands and avoid conversion of the land to farming or development. This will prevent an estimated 190,000 tonnes of CO₂ from entering the atmosphere over the next 50 years. This is the equivalent of almost 208 million pounds of coal burned…”
The Climate Action Reserve
“As the premier carbon offset registry for the North American carbon market, the Climate Action Reserve encourages action to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by ensuring the environmental integrity and financial benefit of emissions reduction projects.
The Reserve establishes high quality standards for carbon offset projects, oversees independent third-party verification bodies, issues carbon credits generated from such projects and tracks the transaction of credits over time in a transparent, publicly-accessible system.
The Reserve offsets program demonstrates that high-quality carbon offsets foster real reductions in GHG pollution, support activities that reduce local air pollution, spur growth in new green technologies and allow emission reduction goals to be met at lower cost…”