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Edible forest gardening is the art and science of putting plants
together in woodlandlike patterns that forge mutually beneficial
relationships, creating a garden ecosystem that is more than the sum of
its parts. You can grow fruits, nuts, vegetables, herbs, mushrooms,
other useful plants, and animals in a way that mimics natural
ecosystems. You can create a beautiful, diverse, high-yield garden. If
designed with care and deep understanding of ecosystem function, you
can also design a garden that is largely self-maintaining. In many of
the world's temperate-climate regions, your garden would soon start
reverting to forest if you were to stop managing it. We humans work
hard to hold back succession—mowing, weeding, plowing, and spraying. If
the successional process were the wind, we would be constantly motoring
against it. Why not put up a sail and glide along with the land's
natural tendency to grow trees? By mimicking the structure and function
of forest ecosystems we can gain a number of benefits.Why Grow an Edible Forest Garden?
While each forest gardener will have unique design goals, forest gardening in general has three primary practical intentions:
- High yields of diverse products such as food, fuel, fiber, fodder, fertilizer, 'farmaceuticals' and fun;
- A largely self-maintaining garden and;
- A healthy ecosystem.
As Masanobu Fukuoka once said, "The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings."
SOURCE: www.edibleforestgardens.com
PIVOT's interactive graphics, maps and photos are designed to help users better understand the issues and visually track progress toward achieving habitat restoration goals in the 28 National Estuary Programs.
An interactive graphic shows how everyday human activities along the coast increase pressures on natural habitat and can impact the health of our estuaries in other ways as well.
Links are provided to information about watersheds, maps, and performance measures useful for reporting progress toward improving the health of coastal watersheds.
The National Estuary Program works with local communities to improve the health of our nation's estuaries. Community support and involvement is fundamental to the success of these efforts. Through an extensive stakeholder planning process, NEP communities develop comprehensive conservation and management plans, or CCMPs. These plans serve as documentation of the communities' environmental goals for their estuaries and watersheds as well as blueprints for achieving those goals. As this is a long-term process, keeping the community well informed and connected with plan activities and progress is critical to keeping the plan a vital, living process for the community.
Performance reporting is not only essential for garnering and maintaining community support, it is often mandated. Enabling legislation or other laws—federal or local—may require responsible agencies to report on what progress they are making toward established goals. For the National Estuary Program, several pieces of federal legislation weigh in on performance reporting.
28 National Estuary Programs
Each of the 28 National Estuary Programs was charged with developing and implementing a Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP) which establishes priorities for activities, research, and funding for the estuary. The CCMP serves as a blueprint to guide future decisions and actions and addresses a wide range of environmental protection issues including water quality, habitat, fish and wildlife, pathogens, land use, and introduced species to name a few. The CCMP is based on a scientific characterization of the estuary and is developed and approved by a broad-based coalition of stakeholders.
This EPA training module is designed to help your watershed organization develop and implement a sustainable funding plan. This module:
- Outlines
the six key steps of fundraising plan development
- Introduces
a diverse set of fundraising options
- Provides case studies of successful finance mechanisms
EPA's hope is to give both established and new nonprofit watershed organizations a solid
methodology for creating finance plans to ensure their own sustainability.
This
module is intended primarily for nonprofit watershed organizations.
State or local governments should visit the EPA Financing for Compliance Page.
We use case studies throughout the module to provide real examples of finance strategies employed by nonprofit watershed organizations throughout the country. The title of this module may suggest a template for creating a written funding plan. While a written plan is one outcome, we hope the process of developing the plan—as outlined in six steps—is of even greater value.
Table of Contents
IntroductionDo You Need a Funding Plan?
Introduction to the Six Steps
Step 1: Establish Priorities
Step 2: Assess Capacity
Step 3: Set Fundraising Goals
Step 4: Identify Funding Sources
Step 5: Evaluate & Select Funding Sources
Step 6: Write & Implement Plan
Final Quiz
Sample Finance Plans
List of Case Studies
References & Additional Resources
This handbook is intended to help communities, watershed
organizations, and state, local, tribal and federal environmental
agencies develop and implement watershed plans to meet water quality
standards and protect water resources. It was designed to help any
organization undertaking a watershed planning effort, and it should be
particularly useful to persons working with impaired or threatened
waters. EPA intends for this handbook to supplement existing watershed
planning guides that have already been developed by agencies,
universities, and other nonprofit organizations. The handbook is
generally more specific than other guides with respect to guidance on
quantifying existing pollutant loads, developing estimates of the load
reductions required to meet water quality standards, developing
effective management measures, and tracking progress once the plan is
implemented.
EPA will be seeking advice from watershed organizations in developing the future versions of the handbook. A mailbox for emailed comments, suggestions, and corrections has been created. Please address them to watershedhandbook@epa.gov.
The links on the website present the full handbook and the handbook divided into 13 chapters, contents (including the cover page,
table of contents, and acronyms and abbreviations), 2 appendices, a glossary, and a bibliography, with downloadable PDF files
for each. You may download each file by clicking on its link.
DOWNLOAD the COURSE at EPA.GOV
This handbook is intended to help communities, watershed organizations, and state, local, tribal and federal environmental agencies develop and implement watershed plans to meet water quality standards and protect water resources. It was designed to help any organization undertaking a watershed planning effort, and it should be particularly useful to persons working with impaired or threatened waters. EPA intends for this handbook to supplement existing watershed planning guides that have already been developed by agencies, universities, and other nonprofit organizations. The handbook is generally more specific than other guides with respect to guidance on quantifying existing pollutant loads, developing estimates of the load reductions required to meet water quality standards, developing effective management measures, and tracking progress once the plan is implemented.
EPA will be seeking advice from watershed organizations in developing the future versions of the handbook. A mailbox for emailed comments, suggestions, and corrections has been created. Please address them to watershedhandbook@epa.gov.
The links on the website present the full handbook and the handbook divided into 13 chapters, contents (including the cover page,
table of contents, and acronyms and abbreviations), 2 appendices, a glossary, and a bibliography, with downloadable PDF files
for each. You may download each file by clicking on its link.
DOWNLOAD the COURSE at EPA.GOV
This interview by Golf Digest with Robert Wood, the deputy director of the Wetlands Division, the EPA's representative in the Golf & the Environment Initiative, and an 18-handicap golfer.
Why do wetlands matter on golf courses?
Why shouldn't I be able to fill in the wetland on my golf-course project?
Wetlands are a vital part of any aquatic ecosystem. They provide habitat to a wide range of wildlife from fish, shellfish, all the way down to insect communities. Wetlands are the unique habitat for something like 30 percent of all endangered species, and 50 percent of endangered species spend at least part of their life cycle in wetlands. They're very ecologically rich.
To most people, endangered species are things like snow leopards and elephants, but there are more than 1,000 endangered species in the U.S. alone.
That's right. People are not thinking about salamanders or vegetation in a wetland. They're critically important as a habitat. And they're critically important as a filter: We build all this infrastructure to keep water clean, and wetlands provide very much that same kind of cleansing capacity in a natural way. And they provide a buffering capacity for storm events. We saw this very much with the Katrina and Rita storms in the Gulf of Mexico.
Is there a figure for the size of America's wetlands? A lot of the wetlands have disappeared.
The first statistical wetlands status-and-trends report in 1983
estimated the rate of wetland loss from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s
at 458,000 acres per year. Wetlands then were largely thought of as a
hindrance to development. In the 1991 report, which covered the
mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, we were still losing wetlands, but the rate
had declined to 290,000 acres a year. The third report, from '86 to
'97, indicated that the rate of loss was down to 58,500 acres per year.
Now the 2006 report, which covers 1998 to 2004, shows that the wetland
area actually increased by an average of 32,000 acres per year. This
was the first report to show that we were in a period of increasing
wetlands. There was, however, some issue with this report over how
wetlands were defined.
[Note: The report states that the total area of wetlands in the
U.S. in 2004 was 107.7 million acres. Wood goes on to explain that the
claim of wetlands growth has been contested. A New York Times story,
for instance, explains that over the study period, 523,500 acres of
true wetlands, swamps and tidal marshes were lost, but this was offset
in the report by gains of 715,300 acres of ponds, including man-made
ornamental ponds -- hardly a fair trade.]
To some golfers, wetlands and wild areas are just a nuisance, places
where you're going to lose your ball. They'd rather see the golf course
mowed from fence line to fence line. What do you say to them?
When you provide a bit of education, you can get a very different
answer. You can say, for example, that not mowing certain areas is
better for wildlife, better for water quality and allows native
vegetation to thrive and maybe prevents an invasive species from moving
in. It might change the look of the course a little bit and the way it
plays a little bit, maybe not. I'm a golfer, and to me what's
intrinsically attractive about the game is that you are essentially in
a natural setting. And it's the restrictions and unique features of
that natural setting that make a particular course challenging, one
that you like and remember and want to go back to. That's been a design
principle of golf courses from the beginning. It's part of the game.
One of the influential landscape architects of the last century was Ian
McHarg, who was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He came
out with a book in 1969 called Design with Nature. The
audience was really urban planners and landscape architects, but it
applies to golf courses, too. It's the tradition of the game, and we're
rediscovering that tradition.
Web-based Geographic Information System for Water Management
IWRIS is a Web-based Geographic Information System application that allows users to access, integrate, query, and visualize multiple sets of data from diverse sources.Some of the databases currently accessible through IWRIS include DWR’s Water Data Library, California Data Exchange Center (CDEC), United States Geological Survey streamflow data, Local Groundwater Assistance Grants (AB303), and data from local agencies. The system will be expanded with additional data sets and functionality in the future.
Improve Water Data Management for Integrated Regional Water Management
DWR developed IWRIS to improve water data management and scientific understanding in support of Integrated Regional Water Management (IRWM).The California Water Plan Update 2005 identifies IRWM as a key initiative to ensure reliable water supplies through the year 2030.
The Department of Water Resources operates and maintains the State Water Project, provides dam safety and flood control and inspection services, assists local water districts in water management and water conservation planning, and plans for future statewide water needs.
RESOURCE:
Integrated Water Resources Information System
Department of Water Resources
Division of Planning and Local Assistance
901 P Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
www.iwris.water.ca.gov
John Todd Ecological Design's ECO Machines bring advanced wastewater treatment technology, and unsurpassed aesthetic, economic, and environmental advantages to companies, communities, and resorts both at home and internationally.
Dr. Todd is a pioneer in the emerging field of ecological design and engineering and has won many prestigious awards and honorary degrees including awards for projects from the EPA and a number of innovation awards including the Theodore Roosevelt conservation Award from the White House, and an achievement award by the United Nations Environment Program.
How does an Eco Machine Wastewater Treatment System Work?
ECO Machines accelerate nature's own water purification process. Unlike chemical-based systems, ECO Machines incorporate helpful bacteria, fungi, plants, snails, clams, and fish that thrive by breaking down and digesting organic pollutants, pollutants that normally deprive the water of oxygen. This clean, simple approach efficiently transforms high-strength industrial wastewater and sewage into water clean enough to be recycled for reuse.CONTACT:
John Todd Ecological Design, Inc.
P.O. Box 497
Woods Hole, MA 02543 USA
1.508.548.2545
www.toddecological.com
In the Eastern and Southern states, coffins from Civil War times are still leaching lead into the water supply! How we bury our dead today will affect our landscape quality for generations to come. And there ARE better choices.
Ecoffins: Eco-Friendly, All Natural and Biodegradable Alternatives for Green Burials and Cremation
As more and more American families and communities look for
eco-friendly solutions to everything in life, a need remains for
greener choices to fulfill the final wishes of loved ones at their time
of death. When William Wainman decided to introduce his company’s Ecoffins to the United States (at the 2007 National Funeral Directors Association International Convention & Exposition last fall) he was not sure how his products would be received. Wainman soon discovered that his timing was right, and that his products fit nicely with a growing need sought after by US funeral professionals.
Sustainable Materials
Ecoffins manufactures their entire product line using only environmentally sustainable material:
Pandanus– an environmentally friendly alternative to sea grass (currently under threat from coastal development, dredging and urban expansion);
Willow– cut from bushes known as crowns which remain harvestable for approximately 40 years before they need to be replanted; and
Banana– sheaves come from the trunk of the plant which peel off naturally each year.
For additional information inquiries about EcoffinsUSA, please contact:
EcoffinsUSATelluride, Colorado
970-708-9652
www.ecoffinsusa.com
