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NRCS


People's Garden in Illinois Provides Food, Sanctuary for Pollinators

June 20, 2014 Jody Christiansen, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Illinois

What’s the buzz going on in Princeton, Ill.? A food fest for our pollinator friends, that’s what. This is a People’s Garden designed specifically for pollinators such as bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. The idea came to Ellen Starr, area biologist with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation...

Conservation Initiatives

Pollinator Protection: Conservation Helps Rare Butterfly

June 19, 2014 Elisa O'Halloran, Natural Resources Conservation Service

Every year, millions of tourists fly from central Mexico into the United States, first stopping in the deep American South and then continuing northward even into parts of southern Canada. How all of this is done without passports, customs agents or airplanes? This is the annual journey made by...

Conservation

Final Yearly Snowpack Forecast Divides West into a Wet North and Dry South

June 18, 2014 Spencer Miller, Natural Resources Conservation Service

Every winter Westerners look to the mountains and may not realize they’re peering into the future. More snow cap means more water come spring and summer. Many lives and livelihoods depend on nature’s uneven hand. Thanks to USDA’s National Water and Climate Center, what used to be speculation is now...

Conservation

The More Conservation for the Illinois and Macinaw Rivers - the Better

June 10, 2014 Tim Malone, District Conservationist, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Illinois

Rivers are special places, and for me, the Illinois and Macinaw rivers in central Illinois are my special places. Both rivers eventually send their waters to the Mississippi River, and the area provides habitat for wildlife as well as recreational opportunities like hunting and fishing. But the...

Conservation

Conservation Work in Arkansas Makes Positive Impact Downstream

June 09, 2014 Ann Mills, USDA Deputy Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment

I recently toured several farms near Stuttgart, Ark. with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s acting Assistant Administrator for Water Nancy Stoner, state officials and conservationists. We met farmers working to clean and conserve water using conservation efforts, including the Mississippi River...

Conservation

USDA Helps Landowners Manage for Soil Health, Buffer Drought Effects

June 06, 2014 Ciji Taylor, Natural Resources Conservation Service

Soil health is always important, but extreme weather in the last few years has shown landowners just how important managing for it really is. “The vital part of soil is topsoil, which unfortunately is also the part most susceptible to the effects of weather. That’s what makes protecting it so...

Conservation

Kentucky Youngster Sees Firsthand the Importance of Wetland Restoration

June 04, 2014 Christy Morgan, Program Analyst, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Kentucky

USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) helps private landowners return fields and pastures that were drained for agricultural use back to their natural state – wetlands. This is because of the value that wetlands provide: they filter and store water, they prevent floods and they...

Conservation

Light Detection and Ranging Helps USDA Pinpoint and Protect Archaeological Mounds

June 02, 2014 Sharron Santure, Cultural Resources Specialist, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Illinois

Sometimes to stop soil erosion, prevent nutrient and sediment runoff and improve habitat, conservation work does disturb the ground. Because of this, USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service relies on its archaeologists on staff to review locations prior to implementing these conservation...

Conservation

Secretary's Column: Supporting Cutting Edge Conservation

May 30, 2014 Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack

This week, USDA and its partners launched a new conservation initiative, the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), a program that goes beyond traditional government support for conservation and allows businesses and other for-profit partners to invest in regional conservation projects...

Conservation

A Wetland Returns to its "Roots" Through a Conservation Easement

May 28, 2014 Jody Christiansen, Illinois Natural Resources Conservation Service

If the land floods more often than growing a crop, why not let it go back to what it wants to be – a wetland. That’s what happened on the Hoppe Heritage Farmstead in 2011. The Hoppe sisters owned cropland along the southern branch of the Kishwaukee River in DeKalb County, Ill. About half of the land...

Conservation
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