Tag Archives: conservancy

Conservation 101 for City Dwellers

by FilomenHedrick Posted on September 6, 2018

As a born and raised city dweller, I tend to jump at opportunities that allow me to experience the great outdoors ? in all its glory. Connecting with nature has always been an important part of my life, from simple walks in the park to hiking adventures in the forest.

For many urbanites, just being outdoors alone, as described above, is connecting with nature. But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The best way to connect with nature is to build a relationship with the environment, which starts with the conservation of our natural spaces and the species they support. Participating in conservation work not only helps the environment, it helps us understand the complexity of ecosystems and their importance to us. This allows us to better connect with nature. We have a responsibility to ensure that nature is conserved here at home. And through conservation, we not only recognize the natural value of other species, we become an ambassador for all things nature.

Conservation for urbanites is two-fold: living in a sustainable manner and protecting the natural environment. These are both distinct but important parts that make up conservation.

To begin your conservation journey, try starting small and working your way up. No matter the size of the act, if you perform stewardship work for nature, nature will reap the benefits. And you will have the satisfaction of knowing your contribution to the big picture of conservation.

So ask yourself this: What can I do to help the natural world within my community and neighbourhood?

Minimizing Your Ecological Footprint

A good and practical starting place is working with the three Rs: reduce, reuse and recycle. Although simple, don?t underestimate the power of this trio. It is best to first reduce and reuse and then, if necessary, recycle. This is because recycling requires energy to disassemble an item and reproduce a product from the dismantled pieces.

Reducing can come in the form of opting for electronic bills to reduce paper use and minimizing excessive energy use through energy-saving light bulbs. You can also buy fewer clothes and wear the clothing in your closet more often before sending them off to a charity or second-hand store. When you shop, reduce your use of plastic bags by bringing reusable bags with you. The options for reducing, reusing and recycling are limitless.

In addition to growing native plants in our yards, there are other steps we can take to help protect nature. You can take further action to protect local biodiversity by avoiding the use of pesticides. Pesticides are harmful to small bugs and insects. As much as possible, we should be conserving wildlife and remembering that each species has a role within an ecosystem, regardless of its size. For example, choose natural insect repellents.

The underlying principle in minimizing your ecological footprint is incorporating sustainability into our everyday practices. Purchase reusable or ?green? products, products with little to no packaging or packaging that can easily be reused or recycled. Think durable, not disposable. Make it a habit to actively reduce, reuse and recycle. These small-scale efforts have long-term benefits.

Hands-On Stewardship for Nature

With our increasingly urbanized world, it is important to conserve habitat for the wildlife that live there. In your own backyard, try gardening and landscaping with native plants, which is a great way to help restore and maintain biodiversity within a local ecosystem. Native species provide habitat and food for many wildlife species, particularly pollinators. Before you begin, thoroughly investigate which species in your area are native.

Consider getting involved with a citizen science project. These are projects that enlist everyday people to work alongside professional scientists by volunteering their time for a research project, such as monitoring species or engaging in biological inventories (bioblitzes) of an area. Not only is this a great way to learn more about nature, but you are helping gather critical information that helps scientists understand changes in landscapes and guides future stewardship efforts. Something as simple as taking pictures of wildlife and uploading to sites such as iNaturalist, a site filled with thousands of observations made by people around the world and that helps scientists understand where and when species occur, are helpful to nature conservation.

Volunteering for nature is perhaps one of the best ways to support and further conservation work. Many cities and nature-based organizations offer opportunities to get involved, such as participating in tree plantings or cleaning up local parks.

The Nature Conservancy of Canada offers many Conservation Volunteers (CV) events throughout the year to engage Canadians in the protection of natural habitats and the species they sustain. Find a CV event and sign up today!

While getting outdoors can sometimes be tough, we should also remember that we have the power to spread the message of nature conservation through word of mouth and social media. In doing so, we acknowledge, support and advance the need for conservation ? a need and responsibility each of us has in protecting nature. It is important that we take action now for the future, because as American civil rights leader John Lewis said, ?If not us, then who? If not now, then when??

The Conservation Internship Program is funded in part by the Government of Canada?s Summer Work Experience program. This post was written by Veshani Sewlall and originally appeared on the Nature Conservancy of Canada?s blog, Land Lines.

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Image via Thinkstock.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Conservation 101 for City Dwellers

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Bay Area voters approve a whole new kind of climate tax

by KarolynTrenerry Posted on June 9, 2016

Bay Area voters approve a whole new kind of climate tax

By on Jun 9, 2016Share

Bay Area voters approved a first-of-its-kind tax to fight the effects of climate change.

Measure AA, which passed with 69 percent of the vote during California’s primary on Tuesday, will impose a new annual property tax of $12 per parcel. The funds raised — an estimated half billion dollars over the next 20 years — will be used to restore tidal marshes around the San Francisco Bay to help mitigate flooding from rising sea levels and climate-related storms. Restoring the wetlands will also provide habitat for migrating birds and other wildlife, as well as help to reduce pollution in the area.

Some opponents said the flat rate was unfair because it taxed everyone at the same level, regardless of income or resources. “Whether it is a struggling farm worker family in a very modest bungalow in Gilroy, or the Apple campus there in Silicon Valley,” the tax is the same, Jon Coupal, president a local taxpayers advocacy group, told NPR in May.

But proponents of the measure argued that a $1-a-month tax was not too onerous, and the benefits to the region would be many. Environmental groups including the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the Nature Conservancy endorsed it as a way to protect the Bay Area from climate change.

About 80 percent of the Bay’s marshes have already been lost to development, KQED reports. One study estimates there is $62 billion worth of property at risk from climate change in the Bay Area, including developments like the Facebook and Google campuses and the San Francisco ferry terminal. The passage of this measure could help change that. Here’s hoping.

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How You Can Be Green in the Office

by WendyWWQHcs Posted on March 5, 2016

I have a nine-to-five job, spending most of my day in front of the computer and far removed from any Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) property. I will likely not be doing hands-on conservation on any given work day. Sometimes, cubicle dwellers like me need to think hard about how we can contribute in environmentally positive ways in our workplace.

Recently, the NCC national office in Toronto opened a can of worms in hopes of closing the loop with our organic wastes. Up until November 2015, there had been no organic waste collection in our building. That all changed when a vermiculture start-up contacted NCC about composting our food waste through Green Bins Growing.

Owner and operator of WasteNot Worm Farms, Jocelyn Molyneux, is just about the most enthusiastic person Ive seen about red, wriggly worms. Over a lunch and learn, Jocelyn introduced our group to the important roles worms play in agriculture, the differences between traditional (hot) composting and worm composting and their fertilizer by-products. Of about a dozen attendees, only one had experience with worm composting and that was from the college she attended that had adopted this practice.

So whats the point of all this, and is it worth it?

Worms are the soils natural nutrient recycling squad and they are quite apt at this job. They eat decaying matter and produce nutrient-rich biofertilizer. By signing on for an office worm composting system, were looking to divert our organic waste away from landfill to a process that feeds back into our food system.

Jocelyn told us one pound of worms can eat up to one pound of food waste each day. The resulting manure material is called worm castings a dense, nutrient-rich humus that sequesters carbons, feeds soil with beneficial microbes that kick-start the soil food web and provides natural plant growth stimulators.

Compare this to conventional fertilizers, which are generally made from petroleum products: conventional fertilizers damage the natural soil ecosystem, reducing soil fertility by killing soil microbes and creating a dependency on further chemical fertilizer applications. Check out this fertilizer buying guide published by National Geographic.

Even when compared to traditional composting, worms come out on top. Traditional composting produces a low-grade soil mulch where the high heat treatment has killed most beneficial microbes and much of the carbon and other nutrients have broken down, Jocelyn says.

The price difference is telling, too. Worm castings weigh in at $400 U.S./cubic yard versus $30 U.S./cubic yard for compost.

A big incentive with WasteNot Worm Farm is that we receive 25 percent of our years castings to give out to employees or donate to a community garden. A good deal, compared to buying it at $5/lb, if you ask me!

Meeting our worms

Red wigglers are small but have a big appetite (Photo by NCC)

After receiving the 101 on worm composting, we had the chance to introduce ourselves to the red wigglers we had just employed. To our surprise, these are thin, spindly worms about two to four inches long; nothing like the big plump earthworms (night crawlers) some of us encounter while working in our gardens.

A brave few held their hand out to meet the worms, but were told not to handle them for too long as worms are photosensitive and can go into spasms under prolonged exposure to light.

We will not however actually have a worm bin in our kitchen, and for good reason! WasteNot Worm Farms collects our food wastes weekly, reducing the risk of fruit flies and limiting the waft of bad odors. Composting at a central farm facility (about 80 kilometres outside of Toronto) is more efficient for a small operation like WasteNot Worm Farms. Like the worms themselves, WasteNot Worm Farms is small but has a big appetite.

Ontario sends three million tonnes of organics to landfill each year, mostly because it’s cheaper to landfill in Michigan than it is to compost in Ontario.

Canadians are hungry for sustainable solutions, and worm farming is a simple, inexpensive biotechnology that recycles waste nutrients back to our soil. With early adopters like the Nature Conservancy of Canada leading the way, I’m confident that vermicomposting is on the verge of becoming a popular Zero Waste industrial recycling solution, says Jocelyn.

Trashing out then and now

Green Bin Growing (Photo by NCC)

It has now been four months since we started using the green bins and I can already see a drastic diversion of wastes. In the past without organic waste collection services, we had no choice but to dump our food scraps into the same bin as our non-recyclables. Since we signed on with WasteNot Worm Farms, our staff have been diligent in correctly sorting their organic, compostable items, recyclables and trash.

Our hope is that by paying a small premium for Green Bins Growing, we are supporting a waste management practice that promotes environmental sustainability. We are looking forward to seeing the volume of worm castings our wastes can generate over the year, ensuring were doing our part to cycle those nutrients back into our soil.

This post originally appeared on Land Lines and was written by Wendy Ho, editorial coordinator with the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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How You Can Be Green in the Office

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Rice paddies providing respite for birds in drought-ravaged California

by torrie199 Posted on January 29, 2014

Rice paddies providing respite for birds in drought-ravaged California

By

Bob White

Water is in dangerously short supply in California, and most of the state’s wetlands have disappeared. So where are all those migratory birds traveling the congested Pacific Flyway supposed to stop for a rest and a feed?

Here come rice farmers to the rescue.

Rice farms are sometimes criticized for using a lot of water. But much of that water is released back into rivers and streams after the growing season. And it is the temporary layer of funky water that makes these fields, found the world over, potential habitat for wildlife.

Experiments led by University of California at Davis researchers have found that salmon fry raised in inundated rice fields grow faster and stronger than their cousins maturing in faster-flowing rivers. The muddy fields also resemble wetlands where birds naturally congregate.

The Nature Conservancy is taking advantage of the wildlife-nurturing potential of rice paddies, partnering with growers to provide “pop-up” habitat for migratory birds. Here’s KQED’s Quest with the details:

Winter is always a busy bird season at Douglas Thomas’s rice farm in Olivehurst, California, about 40 miles north of Sacramento. …

The birds come here because Thomas keeps his rice fields flooded in December and January. The water decomposes the rice straw leftover from last year’s harvest.

Normally, at the end of January, “we would let our water go and start trying to dry our fields out because the lake that’s in front of us has to be dry enough to drive a tractor in it and then we’ve got to seed it,” he says.

But not this year. Thomas is leaving water on his fields a little longer as part of an experimental project with The Nature Conservancy, designed to provide extra habitat for the birds when they need it most. …

The group is paying farmers to create about 10,000 acres of these temporary wetlands in February and March. The bidding process is secret, but bids came in both above and below $45 per acre, the payments some farmers get from federal conservation programs.

The approach is particularly valuable in California’s Central Valley. About 95 percent of wetland habitat has been lost during the past two centuries in the once wildlife-rich landscape, replaced by earthen levees constructed alongside rivers to protect farms and homes from natural flooding.


Source
Precision Conservation, The Nature Conservancy
During Drought, Pop-Up Wetlands Give Birds a Break, KQED Quest

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Why haven’t the big green groups divested from fossil fuels?

by Larry Daichea Posted on May 6, 2013

Why haven’t the big green groups divested from fossil fuels?

By Lisa Hymas

Dirty money.

Colleges and universities have started to do it. Cities like San Francisco and Seattle have started to do it. But many of the biggest environmental and conservation groups in the U.S. still haven’t made any moves to dump their investments in oil, gas, and coal companies, reports Naomi Klein in The Nation:

One would assume that green groups would want to make absolutely sure that the money they have raised in the name of saving the planet is not being invested in the companies whose business model requires cooking said planet, and which have been sabotaging all attempts at serious climate action for more than two decades.

But in some cases at least, that was a false assumption. …

Conservation International, notorious for its partnerships with oil companies and other bad actors (the CEO of Northrop Grumman is on its board, for God’s sake), has close to $22 million invested in publicly traded securities and, according to a spokesperson, “We do not have any explicit policy prohibiting investment in energy companies.” The same goes for the Ocean Conservancy, which has $14.4 million invested in publicly traded securities, including hundreds of thousands in “energy,” “materials” and “utilities” holdings. A spokesperson confirmed in writing that the organization does “not have an environmental or social screen investment policy.”

Neither organization would divulge how much of its holdings were in fossil fuel companies or release a list of its investments. But according to Dan Apfel, executive director of the Responsible Endowments Coalition, unless an institution specifically directs its investment managers not to invest in fossil fuels, it will almost certainly hold some stock, simply because those stocks (including coal-burning utilities) make up about 13 percent of the US market, according to one standard index. “All investors are basically invested in fossil fuels,” says Apfel. “You can’t be an investor that is not invested in fossil fuels, unless you’ve actually worked very hard to ensure that you’re not.”

Another group that appears very far from divesting is the Wildlife Conservation Society. Its financial statement for fiscal year 2012 describes a subcategory of investments that includes “energy, mining, oil drilling, and agricultural businesses.” How much of WCS’s $377 million endowment is being held in energy and drilling companies? It failed to provide that information despite repeated requests.

The [World Wildlife Fund]-US told me that it doesn’t invest directly in corporations—but it refused to answer questions about whether it applies environmental screens to its very sizable mixed-asset funds. The National Wildlife Federation Endowment used to apply environmental screens for its $25.7 million of investments in publicly traded securities, but now, according to a spokesperson, it tells its investment managers to “look for best-in-class companies who were implementing conservation, environmental and sustainable practices.” In other words, not a fossil fuel divestment policy.

Meanwhile, the Nature Conservancy—the richest of all the green groups—has at least $22.8 million invested in the energy sector, according to its 2012 financial statements. Along with WCS, TNC completely refused to answer any of my questions or provide any further details about its holdings or policies.

Alongside her article, Klein has published a “cheat sheet” listing 14 big green groups and specifics about what they are — or are not — doing to get their financial houses in order. The Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society come out smelling the rosiest. (Klein is on the board of 350.org, which has been pushing a divestment campaign.)

Over at Forbes.com, Tim Worstall plays the contrarian:

[I]t seems most righteous to take the profits being made in the [fossil fuel] field to use to campaign against those profits. … We, of course, can then take the moral decision as to what to do with that extra money: buy solar cells, hug panda bears, whatever. I myself might use it to subsidise the research I already do into how to make fuel cells.

Do you buy that logic? Tell us below in comments.

Lisa Hymas is senior editor at Grist. You can follow her on

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Why haven’t the big green groups divested from fossil fuels?

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