Conservation

Muffled honking above draws wildlife painter Richard Clifton’s eyes to the sky. Flying overhead is a flock of nearly 30 snow geese preparing to land nearby in Clifton’s crop field in Milton, Delaware. In early March, this is a common scene due to his unique wetland ‘plant and flood’ restoration...

Rwanda native Janine Ndagijimana, her husband Faustine and their children moved to Burlington, Vermont in 2007 after living in a refugee camp in Tanzania for 13 years. Now a U.S. citizen, she works closely with Ben Waterman, the New American Farmer Program coordinator at the University of Vermont...

USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service is celebrating National Volunteer Week April 10-16, 2016, by thanking and honoring its Earth Team volunteers for their service to conservation. When Otis Donald Philen, Jr. decided to combine his working farm operation with an outdoor classroom, he knew...

USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service is celebrating National Volunteer Week April 10-16, 2016, by thanking and honoring its Earth Team volunteers for their service to conservation. After service in the U.S. Navy, that included deployment to Kuwait and Afghanistan, Commander Theresa Everest...

“This partnership couldn’t have worked out any better,” said Academy of Arts, Careers and Technology (AACT) Agriculture Teacher Michelle Burrows. As part of a senior project to put their agricultural and leadership skills into practice, Earth Team volunteers Samantha (Sam) Antipa and Monique...

The Homeless Garden Project (HGP) in Santa Cruz, California provides sanctuary, refuge and meaningful work for homeless citizens within the healing environment of a three-acre organic farm in Santa Cruz, California. This unique urban garden and farm is inspired by the joy that comes from growing and...

A new study offers the first empirical data proving that female lesser prairie-chickens avoid grasslands when trees are present. The study, highlighted in a Science to Solutions report by the Lesser Prairie-Chicken Initiative (LPCI), underscores the importance of removing woody invasive plants like...

Spaniards built the Acequia de Las Joyas approximately 300 years ago. The acequia, a community irrigation watercourse or ditch, was the principal method of providing water to the farmers for their crop and rangelands in northern New Mexico. The parciantes (also known as acequia members) worked...

The day was brisk, the air was fresh, and the subject of the day was captivating. Sixteen Natural Resources Conservation Service ( NRCS) field conservationists in California had just sat through a day of classroom-style instruction on cultural resources policy, law and identification. Now they...

When Burchel Blevins drives visitors around his rural Kentucky farm, he points out the numerous conservation practices he has implemented to protect and preserve his land. Blevins owns more than 650 forested acres and 70 acres of open forest and grass land in different parts of Knox County, and he’s...