Natural Resource Management Stories

Conservation - Collaboration Success Story: Nature Conservancy and Nutrient Stewardship Council in Western Lake Eire Watershed.  Accreditation of fertilizer merchants (term?) to educate farmers in the 4Rs:   Right amount, right time, right place, right ....  These are complicated decisions; fertilizer reps and farmers understand better all of the details of each decision, while scientists and Nature Conservancy have ideas about solutions.  By working together (also motivated by Ohio Law) they are innovating solutions, like using liquid fertilizer to furrow-apply salt-free fertilizer directly on seeds of side-dressing or foliar applications

Monarch voluntary conservation agreements.  Monarch butterfly has been in steep decline and the iconic insect is the subject of a successful citizen science campaign to document migration patterns and encourage milkweed host plant cultivation.  Now Monarch is being considered for listing as endangered species. Voluntary conservation agreements and memorandum of understanding between the USFWS and private companies and individuals are being encouraged as a way to avoid ESA listing.

The recent decision to de-list the lesser prairie chicken was based on the existence of a voluntary conservation agreement whose possible beneficial effects on the species were not considered by USFWS.

Now power companies and Midwestern farmers seem to think a voluntary conservation agreement is a good insurance policy against a possible listing decision.  If the monarch is listed, the government could require landowners across the country to be pollinator friendly.  Monarchs need us to manage for milkweeds.

Don't mess with Iowa.  Agricultural misperceptions of the 2015 proposed Clean Water Act rule led to lawsuits that forced the EPA and Army Corps to halt the implementation of the rule.  Coal states were able to obtain a supreme court ruling halting implementation of the 2015 CO2 rule for the "Clean Air Act".  And now Iowa (and other midwestern farmers) are against the EPA's proposed strengthened standards for atrazine, a popular herbicide.  Midwestern farmers argue that lowering the allowed concentration of the popular herbicide would impair their ability to grow food for the country.  Farmers also point out that the proposed standards might lead to more water pollution, not less, due to the reliance of no-till farmers on broad-spectrum "burn down" herbicides to clear the fields for planting.  Without these herbicides, farmers would be forced to go back to tilling their land in order to mechanically disrupt existing weeds.