The nation’s most important conservation and recreational access program has protected areas in almost every state and county, but it could soon expire without action by Congress.

In Montana, conservationists, landowners, business leaders and government officials consider the importance of the most important yet least-known and understood conservation and access program in the U.S. – the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Farmers in Oklahoma use cover crops and smart pasturing of livestock to reduce their use of chemical fertilizers, improve water quality, and increase their bottom line. Researchers are finding useful purposes for recycled urine.

Taking the long view, private landowners in Arkansas manage their forests to supply a growing market for sustainable wood products.

A rugged mountain range in southern Arizona provides a home for a major military base and communities that value the lifestyle and magical beauty of the landscape. Bobwhite quail suffer serious decline in Kentucky, where native grasses have been replaced by exotics for cattle pastures and conservationists try to reverse the damage. Private landowners in Arkansas manage their forests to supply a growing market for sustainable wood products. Once reviled and exterminated, wolves in Yellowstone National Park are now widely recognized as essential to a balanced ecosystem.

In northern Montana, former adversaries join together in a diverse coalition to support a new management plan and more wilderness for a spectacular stretch of mountains.

A widely based coalition of local interest groups campaigns for permanent protection of forests, watersheds and wildlife habitat in a critical northern Montana landscape. Small-scale farmers in Montana learn how to grow crops organically with helpful support from advisers with the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Crop dusters commonly spray a toxic brew of pesticides on farmworkers in the fields, and the impact on the environment and the health of many people in Lake Apopka, Florida is obvious (co-produced with Earthjustice).

With waste from a new industrial hog farm threatening the purity of the nation’s first national river, citizens raise the alarm and score a victory with a lawsuit. Farmers in Iowa and Illinois adopt new practices to prevent runoff of chemicals and waste that would pollute the Mississippi River. Running out of space in Yellowstone National Park, bison are re-located to Indian reservations in Montana where they can build new populations of wild herds (produced with Earthjustice).

After an industrial-scale hog farm is built close to the Buffalo National River in Arkansas, local residents are alarmed by the serious threat of pollution.

In March, 2013, ExxonMobil’s Pegasus pipeline ruptured, emptying 210,000 of diluted bitumen crude oil in Mayflower, Arkansas. Most residents didn’t know they were living above or near a hazardous pipeline. A co-production with InsideClimate News.

After the pipeline rupture in Mayflower, Arkansas, residents and local authorities worry about the pipeline’s threat to their water supplies. A co-production with InsideClimate News.