After decades of underfunding, America’s national parks face a backlog of repairs and maintenance now totaling nearly 12 billion dollars. Alarmed by advancing urban sprawl, conservationists in South Carolina rely on the Land and Water Conservation Fund to acquire land needed to protect the natural wonders of a coastal landscape. Researchers in Minnesota are developing perennial food crops that could revolutionize American agriculture.
With fast population growth in the Denver area and fierce competition for water, investors are behind a plan to import water from a Colorado mountain valley hundreds of miles away, a plan largely opposed by farmers and ranchers who depend on water in that valley. A mother’s tasks in a Texas farm family shows how the role of women in agriculture is now vitally important in managing the business of farming and using best practices to conserve soil and water.
Another good example of how the Land and Water Conservation Fund enables protection of iconic landscapes nationwide: the Blue Ridge Parkway stretching 469 miles through breathtaking scenery from Virginia to North Carolina. Researchers explore the role of tiny marine animals in the movement of ocean waters.
Landowners in Pennsylvania are managing their forests to provide better habitat for declining species of songbirds like the golden-winged warbler.
