People become interested in agroforestry for a wide range of reasons including improving water quality, enhancing wildlife habitat, reducing soil erosion, and increasing crop and livestock production. Agroforestry, the intentional combination of trees with crops or livestock, is designed to support landowners’ conservation and production goals. Through U.S. Forest Service, state agency, and other technical assistance providers who work with landowners, the National Agroforestry Center works with partners to care for the land and serve people. Agroforestry can take a lot of different forms. In Pennsylvania, private landowner Denny Colwell, is growing ginseng in the woods to steward his land, using an
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In partnership with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Appalachian LCC staff recently conducted workshops in Crossville, Tennessee and Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge in Decatur, Alabama to introduce LCC-funded research products to resource managers and scientists. The events demonstrated the need behind working at a landscape scale to better plan and manage for the conservation of essential natural and cultural resources. More specifically, it showcased Appalachian LCC derived tools and resources that can enhance collaboration between federal, state, and local entities and aid conservation planning efforts that transcend state lines. A total of 67
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Spring officially started this week, but for many of us it had already begun. Back in February, unseasonably warm temperatures swept over much of North America, buds began opening on trees, and flowers began to bloom weeks early. Naturally, birders began to ask: Will our migratory birds come back earlier, too? That question doesn’t have a simple yes or no answer because the timing of bird migration is . . . complicated. Every species is slightly different; short-term changes in weather do have an impact, but so do a variety of other innate and environmental factors. Here’s a quick primer
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In an effort to improve wildlife habitat in N.C., the Wildlife Resources Commission continues to conduct prescribed burns on game lands across the state. Prescribed burns, also known as controlled burns, are one of the most beneficial and cost-effective methods for managing and improving habitat for wildlife. This simple and effective management tool helps the Commission restore and maintain wildlife habitat on nearly 2 million acres of game lands. Many of North Carolina’s declining or rare wildlife species like the Red-cockaded woodpecker and the Bachman’s sparrow are adapted to fire or can only survive in fire-assisted habitat. Burning encourages production
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Partners in Flight (PIF) is excited to announce the release of its newly revised and updated website! The URL hasn’t changed – it is still www.partnersinflight.org– but it has a fresh new look and in-depth information on current science and conservation activities across our landbird network. It builds upon and adds to the content many found useful from the old PIF site. The updated site continues to serve as the online home of the 2016 PIF Landbird Conservation Plan. It now also provides improved access to a wealth of landbird conservation resources and invites people to get engaged in PIF’s mission
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The greater bird conservation community has identified a need for human dimensions success stories to be collected, organized, and shared with the community. As such, the North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI) Human Dimensions Subcommittee has volunteered to take on this project and we’ve created the following Google form to help collect and characterize the success stories where human dimensions/social science has been used to benefit bird conservation. For the purposes of this data collection, success is defined as some sort of management, program (or approach), monitoring or conservation status change in response to considering/collecting the HD information. For example, what changed
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