Author Archive for Staff
Environmental Engineer and Farmer Nancy Hayden Lives Her Ideals
Nancy Hayden filled many roles during the Northeast Organic Farming As¬sociation of Vermont’s (NOFA-VT) Winter Conference, on Valentine’s Day weekend, Feb. 14-16. Hayden has attended NOFA-VT’s annual gathering for 22 of its 33 years — as a farmer, workshop leader and artist.
This year, she was there as an exhibitor, for the first time. She prefers farming and painting over marketing.
Filed in: Blog
Marla Spivak: To grasp our bees’ plight and prospects, stay focused on food
As I listened to Marla Spivak discuss the plight and prospects of our honeybees on Monday evening, it occurred to me that I was watching a masterful application of Albert Einstein’s principle that complex matters should be made as simple as possible – but not simpler.
Most of us have grasped by now that honeybees are under pressure from multiple sources, with certain insecticides, habitat loss, parasites and disease in the leading roles.
Conservation Status and Ecology of the Monarch Butterfly in the United States
North America forms the core of the monarch’s distribution but the overall range extends through Central America and the Caribbean to South America. Monarchs also occur in Hawaii, Australia, and several Pacific islands, as well as parts of Asia, Africa, and southern Europe (Zhan et al. 2014).
Several populations outside of the Americas appear to be nonnative, originating from introductions that are thought to have occurred in the 1800s (Vane-Wright 1993), but Zhan et al. (2014) suggests that introductions may have occurred much earlier.
Filed in: Blog
Reclaiming Broken Places: Introduction to Civic Ecology
The actions of ordinary people are often absent in studies of urban renewal and urban ecology. Around the world, people who are fed up with environmental degradation and the breakdown of their communities come together to transform blighted vacant lots, trashed-out stream corridors, polluted estuaries, and other “broken places.”
Civic ecology practices—such as community gardening, wetlands restoration, river cleanups, and tree planting…
Planting a future for monarch butterflies
I have a confession to make. A few years ago, on a farm I own in eastern Nebraska, I took 44 acres out of production, on purpose. That’s a lot.
Where corn and beans once grew, I planted tall, native grasses and wildflowers. Among area farmers, this was seen as nothing short of scandalous.
4 Million People Demand Obama Administration to Protect Bees from Toxic Insecticides
Today, a coalition of more than 125 conservation, beekeeping, food safety, religious and farming advocacy groups rallied in front of the White House and delivered more than four million petition signatures calling on the Obama administration to put forth strong protections for bees and other pollinators.
The rally coincided with both a D.C. metro ad campaign, and Representatives Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and John Conyers’ (D-MI) reintroduction of the Saving America’s Pollinators Act…
Milkweed of human kindness
The migration of monarch butterflies is one of the natural world’s most epic journeys. Weighing only about as much as a paper clip, they fly up to 3,000 miles from their summer homes in America’s backyards and grasslands to wintering grounds in Mexico’s mountain forests.
But in recent years, the monarch butterfly populations have dwindled alarmingly.
Filed in: Blog
Home Is Where the Habitat Is
It was a snowy March day in 1995, and I had just purchased a house in an old St. Paul neighborhood. As I surveyed the back yard, which had been occupied by two large dogs all winter, I tried to imagine how I could convert the torn-up turf grass into the kind of yard that people and wildlife would want to visit.
It was a stretch to picture a new landscape, but I was determined to try. With my background as a plant ecologist and gardener, the yard project felt like my kind of challenge.
