WASHINGTON, DC, January 19, 2009 (ENS) – The farm of pioneer conservationist Aldo Leopold in Wisconsin has been designated as a National Historic Landmark, in one of the final actions of the outgoing Bush administration.

Eight other new National Historic Landmarks were announced Friday, located in Connecticut, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, California, Florida, Illinois, Colorado, and Arizona, but none of the others is significant to the history of American conservation.

“The historical and cultural developments reflected by these new National Historic Landmarks is tremendous,” said Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, announcing the designation Friday. “I am especially pleased to honor the place at which conservationist Aldo Leopold was inspired to write ‘A Sand County Almanac.’”

The Aldo Leopold Shack and Farm in Fairfield and Lewiston Townships is a property once owned by Aldo Leopold, who lived from January 11, 1887 to April 21, 1948. A forester, writer, professor, and conservationist, Leopold inspired natural resource conservation in America.

The Leopold Shack and Farm are now a National Historic Landmark. (Photo courtesy Aldo Leopold Foundation)

Leopold pioneered the science and profession of wildlife management and his conservation philosophies led to the establishment of national policies on forestry, game management, watershed management and soil conservation.

The influence of his concept of land health and his land ethic philosophy has endured since his death at the national and international levels.

In the early 1930s, Leopold purchased a small farm and rehabilitated a chicken coop, lovingly referred to as the Shack, in Baraboo, Wisconsin, for him and his family as a weekend retreat where they could focus on the restoration of the natural environment and observe daily and seasonal changes.

The setting of the Shack provided inspiration for Leopold’s writings on conservation, the environment, and wildlife.

After Leopold’s death in 1948, one of his most influential works, “A Sand County Almanac” was posthumously published. This was a collection of personal essays and sketches Leopold composed, working most of the time at the farm and the Shack.

“Aldo Leopold, the father of the land ethic and perhaps the most famous graduate of the school where I am dean, came to believe “that there is a basic antagonism between the philosophy of the industrial age and the philosophy of the conservationist,” wrote Gus Speth, who has served as dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies since 1999.

Writing in the current issue of “The Leopold Outlook,” published by the Aldo Leopold Foundation, Speth notes, “Remarkably, he wrote to a friend that he doubted anything could be done about conservation ‘without creating a new kind of people.’”

Aldo Leopold (Photo courtesy U. Wisconsin Aldo Leopold Archives)

The Aldo Leopold Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin has built and now operates the Aldo Leopold Legacy Center, an educational and interpretive facility near the Shack and farm, located on the land where Leopold died in 1948 fighting a brush fire.

Visitors can see the Shack when they visit the Legacy Center, which was built as the embodiment of Leopold’s philosophy. The net zero energy building meets all of its energy needs on site and features solar power, geothermal, and sustainable building materials that make it one of the greenest buildings in the world.

The Legacy Center has not only received the US Green Building Council’s LEED® platinum certification, the highest possible level, but it was more highly rated than any other building yet rated in the United States. It is also the first building ever to be certified “carbon neutral.”

Each year, thousands of visitors explore the land surrounding the Shack and farm. Public guided tours of the Shack are offered by the Legacy Center from May-October of each year, and include Leopold’s history and philosophy, a visit inside the Shack, and a walk through restored prairie and woods.

“Drawing on his life-long study of ecology, land use, history, and ethics, Aldo Leopold concluded that the highest task of civilization was to figure out how ‘to live on a piece of land without spoiling it,’” says Buddy Huffaker, executive director of the Aldo Leopold Foundation.

“It’s an ideal articulated by one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th Century, an ideal we must embrace in this one.”

Click here to see more on the National Historic Landmark program can be found on the National Park Service website.

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WASHINGTON, DC, June 12, 2008 (ENS) – The federal Migratory Bird Conservation Commission today approved $4 million to purchase more than 18,000 acres of prairie wetland and grassland habitat for the Glacial Ridge National Wildlife Refuge in northwestern Minnesota

In one of the largest purchases to use dollars generated by Federal Duck Stamp sales and import duties on firearms and ammunition, the commission says the nation’s hunters are contributing to conservation of the habitat on which wetland waterfowl depend.

The current Federal Duck Stamp features
a pair of ring-neck ducks drawn by
Richard Clifton. It expires on June 30,
2008. (Image courtesy USFWS)

“The purchase of these lands for the Glacial Ridge National Wildlife Refuge symbolizes the tremendous investment our nation’s sportsmen and women have made to natural resource conservation through their purchase of Federal Duck stamps, and through the import duties paid on firearms and ammunition,” said Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, who serves as the commission’s chairman.

Established in October 2004, the Glacial Ridge National Wildlife Refuge is located near Crookston, in Minnesota’s Polk County.

The acquisition of the 18,118 acres for the refuge will provide wetland and grassland habitat for migratory waterfowl such as the mallard, northern pintail, blue-winged teal, and ring-necked duck species, and the Canada goose and tundra swan.

It will form a large area of contiguous prairie habitat to help compensate to the fact that currently, less than one percent of Minnesota’s original northern tallgrass prairie habitat remains.

The refuge is open to the public for recreational activities such as hiking, hunting, fishing, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing.

The commission meets three times a year and includes Senators Blanche Lincoln, an Arkansas Democrat, and Thad Cochran, a Mississippi Republican; Representatives John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat; and Wayne Gilchrest, a Maryland Republican; as well as Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson.

At this meeting, the commission also approved the purchase of an additional 3,000 acres of waterfowl habitat for inclusion in the National Wildlife Refuge System.

The Commission’s approval of refuge acquisitions also secured breeding, resting and feeding habitat that will be added to three other National Wildlife Refuges.

* Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, Camden, Gates and Pasquotank Counties, North Carolina – Acquisition of 1,481 acres to protect wetland forests that provide important nesting, feeding, and resting habitat for waterfowl, including the American black duck, wood duck, mallard, and Canada goose.

* Lake Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge, Oxford County, Maine – Acquisition of 1,129 acres to protect wetland habitat for the American black duck, ring-necked duck, common goldeneye, wood duck, common merganser, and hooded merganser.

* Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge, Washington and Yamhill Counties, Oregon – Acquisition of 180 acres supporting the tundra swan, mallard, northern pintail, canvasback, ring-necked duck, lesser scaup, and Canada goose species, including dusky, lesser, Taverner, cackling, western, and the Aleutian subspecies.

The Commission also approved more than $24 million in federal funding to protect, restore, enhance and manage more than 107,000 acres of wetlands and associated habitats in Canada, Mexico and the United States under the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, NAWCA.

This total includes $19.7 million for four Canadian projects that will benefit North American migratory waterfowl on nearly 80,000 acres in 12 provinces and territories across Canada.

It also includes nearly $640,000 for two projects that will help protect 2,470 acres in Mexico.

Partners will contribute an additional $33 million in total for these six projects.

The commission also authorized more than $1.67 million to fund 27 projects under the NAWCA U.S. Small Grants program. These projects were previously approved for funding, along with 35 others, by the North American Wetlands Conservation Council, and will restore, enhance or protect more than 28,657 acres in 24 states.

Partners will contribute another $29 million toward these projects.

The grants are funded by annual Congressional appropriations; fines, penalties and forfeitures levied under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act; interest accrued on funds under the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act; and excise taxes paid on small engine fuels through the Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration Fund.

More information about NAWCA grant programs and summaries of the projects approved today is online at: www.fws.gov.

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Pope Benedict the XVI attended a “Save Creation Day” rally in Loreto, Italy, where hundreds of thousands of catholics waited to hear his prayers. His message to the audience and the world at large was one of conservation, charity and peace. The Pope seemed to state that spirituality can be strengthened, if not created by a strong bond with nature.

The Pope also exhorted young people to resist the lures of modern consumerism and fleeting pleasures. There certainly is an interesting connection between a rampant consumer market and a lack of natural resource conservation, since a constant stream of resources is needed to fuel the production lines of the free market. Perhaps the Pope was suggesting that if you are happy with fewer material objects in your life (and more spiritual activities), then there would be less demand for the harvesting of natural resources. This would in turn put less strain on the environment and would mean that the life system on the planet would be better off than it is now.

Perhaps the most heartwarming fact about this rally was that the whole event was made carbon neutral by planting trees in fire ravaged southern Italy, which suffered terribly in Summer wildfires. Additionally, all the people in the crowd were given recycling bags to separate all of their trash as well as hand cranked cell phone chargers. In addition to this, the Pope wore a green tinged golden robe for the event.

The Catholic Church has been making an effort to become sustainable themselves. Recently the church installed solar panels on many church buildings, hoping to set an example in sustainability.