© Nick Hall for TNC
In an era where political discourse is driven more by conflict than collaboration, there are few ideas that bring Americans together like Natural Climate Solutions (NCS). These solutions are actions that reduce emissions and increase carbon storage in forests, farms, grasslands, and wetlands, including efforts to employ techniques that retain carbon in soil, conserving and …
It’s a crisp fall day in northern Minnesota, and our team suits up in mud boots, jackets, and backpacks with greenhouse gas monitoring equipment. We squelch through sphagnum mosses, careful to avoid stepping on rare (and carnivorous) pitcher plants and pausing to taste wild bog cranberries. Sax-Zim bog, a watery landscape that covers more than …
The Nature Conservancy
The agriculture community is on the front lines of one of the greatest environmental challenges of our time: climate change. Yet farmers are drawing on their rich heritage and passion for stewardship to navigate a changing climate while leaving a legacy to the next generation, as illustrated in The Nature Conservancy’s three-part video series featuring two Midwest farming families.
© Dan Videtich/Courtesy TNC
Keith Bennett is a seed harvest and restoration technician for The Nature Conservancy’s Dunn Ranch Pawnee Prairie in Hatfield, Missouri. He is helping restore Missouri’s native tallgrass prairie by collecting as much as 800 pounds of native seeds by hand in a season. In this interview, read about the importance of protecting tall grass prairie, how cemeteries are great places for collecting the native plant seeds, and how prescribed fires can be beneficial for prairie plants.
Many communities in the U.S. are developing Climate Action Plans (CAPs) to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and achieve carbon neutrality. While many CAPs focus on the energy, transportation and waste sectors, most do not consider the role forests and trees play in the fight against climate change. This is because planners have lacked the data and clear guidance needed to include them in GHG inventories, which CAPs are based.
Steve Crooks/Silvestrum Climate Associates
The San Francisco Bay and its 59,000 acres of tidally influenced wetlands comprise the largest estuary on the U.S. West Coast and offer the region’s more than 7 million residents many benefits. These include providing habitat for thousands of birds and recreationally and commercially important fish, such as salmon and Pacific herring; protecting the coastline from floods; and helping to maintain a clean, plentiful water supply. And now, a study commissioned by The Pew Charitable Trusts and conducted by Silvestrum Climate Associates highlights another significant benefit of the San Francisco Bay: slowing climate change.
Richard Hamilton Smith
U.S. Nature4Climate (USN4C), a non-profit and non-partisan coalition of conservation, environmental, and sustainable business organizations, recently unveiled their “Decision-Makers Guide to Natural Climate Solutions” to address the disconnect between the limited funding going towards natural climate solutions and their vast potential impact. The Guide is designed to ensure a clear path forward for the effective planning and implementation of natural climate solutions nationwide.
Kent Mason
Known by many names—from fen, bog, and marsh to mire and swamp—peatlands are a type of wetland that plays important roles in the environment, including absorbing carbon from the atmosphere and supporting an abundant array of wildlife. They also provide numerous benefits to people, including drinking water and food as well as recreational and educational activities. But many of these benefits may not be around for long, because peatlands around the world face myriad threats to their existence.
Byron Jorjorian
Rapid deployment of land-based measures for reducing emissions is ‘essential in all pathways’ for keeping global warming to 1.5°C. Put simply, we cannot get to 1.5 without nature – including both the protection of our remaining forests and restoring damaged ecosystems. Not only can we not reach our agreed global goal without nature, but we also need to mobilize fast, as nature’s efficacy and abilities to mitigate the most damage are most potent in the next eight years.
Photo by Kevin Lee.
As Puget Sound cities and towns experience rapid growth, identifying opportunities to invest in high-impact tree planting and preservation projects is essential to ensuring people will continue to receive the multiple benefits of trees.
A coalition of local, regional and national partners has come together to address this goal and develop a model for the Central Puget Sound region to target projects that maximize the benefits of the urban tree canopy.