The Florida Water and Land Conservation Amendment is a ballot initiative to stop the raiding of conservation funds and return to protecting important habitat areas.

In recent years, the funding that was intended for protecting important streams, wetlands, forests, and beaches has been diverted away from conservation. In fact, the Florida state legislature has cut conservation spending by nearly 98 percent. Florida, known for its breathtaking habitats and intriguing creatures, now spends less than one dollar per Floridian on conservation. We need to act now to restore funding to preserve our conservation legacy for the next generation before it’s too late.

Right now we have a chance to secure funding that will protect water quality and restore wildlife habitats by making sure the Florida Water and Land Conservation Amendment appears on Florida’s 2014 state ballot. The Florida Water and Land Conservation Amendment would amend the state constitution to safeguard conservation money—dedicating funds to help fish and wildlife habitats, protect water quality, restore the Everglades and much more.

Help build support for conservation!

• Facebook: Spread the word by sharing this photo of an adorable manatee! Remind your friends to sign the petition when they see a volunteer on Election Day.
• Don’t have Facebook? Send your friends an electronic postcard of a roly-poly manatee. Help support the Florida Water and Land Conservation Amendment and encourage your friends to sign the petition on Election Day.
• Volunteer: We need 50,000 more signatures by November 31st to get the Amendment reviewed by the Florida Supreme Court. With millions of Floridians headed to the polls on November 6, it may be our best chance at gathering the signatures needed. We know that with enough dedicated volunteers, we can reach our goal of 50,000 signatures. Sign up today!

Sandhill cranes are one of the species that will be affected by cuts to conservation

Today, people across the country are participating in a National Conservation Day of Action to protest the huge cuts to farm bill conservation programs that the House of Representative passed in their agriculture spending bill. Your Senator needs to hear from you about the importance on funding for conservation programs. The federal budget should not be balanced on the back of conservation and renewable energy.

Conservation programs such as the Wetlands Reserve Program – which pays farmers to set aside and restore wetlands through long term and permanent easements – help to improve water quality, reduce downstream flooding risk, and provide valuable habitat for migratory birds such as the sandhill crane. Other conservation programs such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which the House voted to dramatically cut, help farmers and ranchers to improve soil health, water quality, and habitat for wildlife

Farm Bill conservation programs not lead to improved soil quality, reduced downstream flooding, cleaner water, and enhanced wildlife habitat, they also directly benefit rural economies through the creation of hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreational opportunities. Take action now and call your Senator by dialing (202) 224-3121.  Tell them the Senate needs to protect farm bill conservation program spending and that the House agriculture spending bill is extreme and unfair. Or, click here if you’d prefer to send an email.

One important way to speak up for wildlife is to make sure that conservation funding for endangered species protection and the State Wildlife Grants Program (which prevents plants and wildlife from becoming endangered) is protected.

Speak Up for Critical Conservation Funding
this Endangered Species Day >>

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The Endangered Species Act

Co-administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the purpose of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is to conserve imperiled species and their habitats. Currently, there are about 1,300 species of plants and wildlife nationwide that are listed as either endangered or threatened.

To date, the Endangered Species Act, which became law in 1973, has helped to prevent the extinction of hundreds of species of plants and wildlife:

5 Endangered Species Act Success Stories

Florida Panther
Habitat loss and uncontrolled hunting reduced the Florida panther to only about 35 animals by the 1980s. Cougars once ranged in the thousands across the eastern United States, but the Florida panther is the only cougar subspecies that still survives east of the Mississippi. Protection of some vital habitat has raised the panther population to some 160 animals in recent years, but habitat loss persists as a critical threat. SPEAK UP FOR ENDANGERED FLORIDA PANTHERS TODAY.

Bald Eagle
As many as 100,000 bald eagles soared over the lower 48 states before Columbus reached the Americas. By 1963, hunting, habitat loss and pesticide contamination had cut the species to just 417 nesting pairs in the continental United States. Under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) initiated captive-breeding programs and habitat protection. A 1972 DDT ban also helped. The bird now numbers nearly 10,000 pairs in the Lower 48 and was delisted in 2007.

Desert Tortoise
Critical habitat designations under the Endangered Species Act have protected areas vital to the desert tortoise. Although the tortoises can live as long as 100 years, they are not equipped to survive livestock grazing, off-road vehicles, mining and vandalism. The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service all protect land for this species.

Karner Blue Butterfly
The key to survival for the Karner blue butterfly is a flower, the wild blue lupine, that grows in pine barrens in the upper Midwest and Northeast. Development has reduced lupine numbers, robbing the Karner blue of a vital food and driving it to extinction in three states. Habitat restoration and reintroductions promise to recover the butterfly in some regions.

Gray Bat
Some 2.25 million gray bats once lived in limestone caverns in the southern and midwestern states. Human activity near the caves cut bat numbers to about 128,000 by the time the species was listed in 1976. Since then, with more caves and forests protected under the Endangered Species Act, the bat population has rebounded to an estimated 1.5 million animals.

Wildlife in Trouble

With all these successes, we must not forget about the wildlife that still desperately need our help. One of the most endangered species in the United States is the Hawaiian monk seal.

Hawaiian monk seal

Known to the native Hawaiians as ‘Ilio-holo-i-ka-uaua, or “dog that runs in rough water,” the Hawaiian monk seal is near the brink of extinction. In 1976, the Hawaiian monk seal was listed as an endangered species. Today, more than 30 years later, its population is in a crisis situation, with the number of seals left in existence estimated to be only 907.

Significant efforts have been made to enhance the recovery of the species. National Wildlife Federation’s Hawai’i affiliate, the Conservation Council for Hawai’i, has been at the forefront of major campaigns to help recover imperiled Hawaiian plants and animals on the brink of extinction, including the Hawaiian monk seal. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has developed a recovery plan, which includes designating critical habitat and a captive care program to get pups through the first couple years of life, which is critical to species survival.

American Girl is partnering with National Wildlife Federation to help raise awareness of endangered animals like the Hawaiian monk seal. With the purchase of every Kanani plush monk seal sold in 2011, American Girl is donating $1 (up to a maximum of $100,000) to NWF’s wildlife education programs.

As cherry blossoms pop up all over Washington, D.C. and as winter is soon to be a distant memory, my immediate thought is my mother encouraging my brother, sister and I to go play outside until the night falls.  However as we face a changing economic, political, and social environment, it seems that swinging on trees, playing in fields, and collecting bugs and worms to make “delicious” mud pies is not the “norm”  for the future generation of kids. Given this scary reality, I personally see the true value in programs that promote time outdoors for children, and hope that one day, it will not just be me urging my kids to get outside, get dirty, and learn something in nature, but the larger community as well.   

PhotoLibrary.com

The US Forest Service is a major force contributing to a growing national movement to bring kids to nature—and nature to kids.  On April 4^th, 2011, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced $1 million in cost-share funding for children’s programs furthering USDA’s commitment to connect young people around the nation with America’s great outdoors.  This announcement comes at the heels of President Obama’s unveiling of the America’s Great Outdoors: A Promise to Future Generations report which encourages active, outdoor lifestyles.  Similarly, Let’s Move Outside!, was launched nearly a year ago as the outdoor component of the comprehensive initiative launched by First Lady Michelle Obama aims to solve the problem of childhood obesity within a generation. 

Now in its fifth year, The More Kids in the Woods program is a competitive funding program for partnership projects that engage kids in active, meaningful learning experiences that get kids outside. Projects focus on reaching diverse youth and serving under-served populations, using outdoor activities and nature-based learning to create meaningful and lasting connections to nature and to advance children’s health.  This year each region of the Forest Service also has a new Children’s Forest initiative!  All of these programs help kids to make the connection between healthy forests, healthy communities and their own healthy lifestyles.  In 2010, funded projects reached more than 15,000 young people.

“The value of these programs and partnerships for youth must not be underestimated,” said U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell. “Young people are tomorrow’s stewards of our public lands, and we must invest in building lasting and meaningful connections between our youth and America’s great outdoors.”

The president has proposed cutting $3 million from the $18.7 million spent annually by the U.S. to keep the blood-sucking lampreys in check.

Such a move would, without question, allow sea lamprey to increase their numbers and kill countless lake trout, whitefish and salmon in the Great Lakes.

Sea lamprey invaded the Great Lakes 50 years ago through the Erie and Welland canals, artificial canals that allowed ships and invasive species to bypass Niagara Falls and reach lakes Erie, Huron, Superior and Michigan.

Although it looks like an eel, the sea lamprey is actually a fish.

Each one of the unsightly beasts — which cling to fish and suck their blood and bodily fluids — can kill as much as 40 pounds of fish per year. A female lamprey can produce as many as 10,000 eggs.

Sea lamprey nearly eliminated lake trout in the Great Lakes in the 1950s and ’60s, before the government worked with private companies to develop a chemical that kills lampreys without causing much collateral damage.

Granted, the war on sea lamprey is costly; it is also eternal. But the ecological and economic benefits have been huge.

Controlling sea lamprey has allowed sport and commercial fish species to recover, which has had tremendous economic benefits for communities around the Great Lakes.

The proposed funding cut comes as the number of lamprey in Lake Michigan is increasing.

Federal officials estimate there are 90,000 sea lampreys in Lake Michigan, about 50 percent more than the goal set by the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. That population will increase dramatically if the president and Congress reduce funding for the control program.

This is not rhetoric aimed at protecting some politician’s pet project.

Sea lamprey are currently the single greatest threat to salmon, lake trout and whitefish in the Great Lakes. We know that reduced funding for sea lamprey control will mean more lampreys, which will thrive at the expense of the Great Lakes fishery.

There are plenty of areas where the president and Congress can trim the federal budget without sucking the life from one of America’s most valuable fisheries.

If you value an ecologically healthy Great Lakes, take a minute to call or e-mail your representative in Congress and insist that current funding levels for the sea lamprey control program remain intact in 2012.

In years past, students have relied heavily on grants from their campus departments, presidents, or student government; this year, however, alternative sources of funding have become extremely important. Earlham College has most definitely embraced this sentiment and had a lot of fun with the fundraising idea they came up with.

Adam Moskowitz, Earlham College’s Power Shift Campus Coordinator said “I think the reason why it was so much fun to do this cookie sale is because we really put effort into making the cookies ourselves with our concrete goals in mind.  The money we make isn’t going to go to some far off charity, it’s going to pay for the gas that will get us to DC.  And that excitement came through when we engaged fellow students.”

The work put into the cookie sale has proven to be well worth the effort.  Over the course of a few sales they have already brought in $70 towards the gas needed to get them to DC. Students often gave tips or donations to the cause and the enthusiasm and interest around the Power Shift conference picked up considerably.  Having a laptop open to the Power Shift 2011 registration page during the sales helped to recruit more students to attend the conference.

So, if your campus is looking to raise additional funds for getting to the Energy Action Coalition’s Power Shift conference this year, a cookie sale may be the way to go!

Help ensure NWF has the funding needed to be on the front lines helping wildlife >>

For all the latest news on how the oil spill is impacting the Gulf Coast’s wildlife & to learn how you can help, visit NWF.org/OilSpill.

Like last
year, the report comes on the heels of a variety of rating systems. Sierra
and Greenopia
have their own (less rigorous) versions ranking the Top 20 and the 100 largest,
respectively, and AASHE has just launched its STARS tracking system for
schools to join. Last year, we released the Campus Report Card, which showed
improvement on the operations and facilities side of greening, but a lag in
curriculum development.

SEI’s report, now in its fourth year, only covers 300 schools in its
ratings, leaving out the other 3700 colleges and universities in the U.S, although
32 new schools petitioned to be added this year and are ranked accordingly. It's worth noting that these
300 schools are chosen not on the basis of extraordinary projects or the
extent of their efforts—though many are pack leaders—but on the size of their
endowments.

The Institute notes, “The profiled schools have combined holdings of more
than $325 billion—approximately 95 percent of all higher education endowment
assets. Widespread investment declines have impacted almost all schools,
with the Report Card finding average endowment value dropping by 23
percent in the past year.”

Its focus on the endowment is the most useful feature of SEI’s research. That enormous pool of money allows the wealthiest schools to support
new research and endeavors that might not otherwise get the funding they need.
Harvard, for example, reports that it invests in renewable energy companies,
and “allocates a portion of the endowment to private equity and natural
resource investments that seed companies and/or ventures that may take
environmental and sustainability factors into consideration.”

But highlighting only the wealthiest or the largest schools is fraught with its own issues. As the Chronicle
and others have pointed out over the years, sustainability is an extremely
difficult thing to track, and an even more difficult thing to grade,
particularly when looking at an entire campus. For example, if the
college is planning to erect a half dozen new buildings that will
certainly increase the energy needs of the campus, even if they are built according to LEED standards, should the school's grade go up or
down? 

And what about the small schools, lacking in deep pockets but with commitment to spare?

Mitchell Thomashow of Unity College notes the importance of university investment, writing that colleges serve as dynamic economic multipliers, becoming places “where businesses and faculty work with students and community members to develop innovative entrepreneurial approaches.” However, Unity, which received a B on SEI’s report, wasn’t graded on its endowment because it didn’t meet the minimum threshold of $16 million in assets. It also received a D in the transportation
category because its 24-car fleet doesn’t include any hybrids, and because
“most people walk to their destinations on campus due to Unity’s small size.” Does this mean that Unity's students and staff aren't invested in their community, or that they are emitting more carbon dioxide during their commutes? Quite the opposite. But SEI's system isn't designed to take these small-school factors into account.

The hope is that as sustainability enters the mainstream, expanded systems like STARS will more comprehensively rate these colleges in a way that takes into consideration factors beyond finance, as well as providing a more common standard for measurement. Without those two factors, measuring sustainability won't be possible.  

The most common way to gain support for these energy projects is to prove a significant return on investment, and are therefore worthy of being included in the college's master plan. So, articles on campus greening initiatives usually include a summary like this one: an initial investment of $X is expected to pay for itself in Y years, and generate an extra $Z. The numbers often speak for themselves, as in the case of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, which saves 2.26 tons of CO2 emissions per vending machine per year using small devices that turn off the machines when idle. The Vending Misers, which cost $175, pay for themselves in one year by saving about $200 on electricity bills.

It seems like a no-brainer. One of our latest articles, Master Planning for Sustainability, quotes Terry Calhoun of the Society of College and University Planners, who says, "If you did good integrated planning, you would end up with sustainability. Why would you build a building that uses six times as much energy as it has to?"

Unfortunately, this picture is incomplete. The reality of a university’s bureaucracy can often mean that even projects with large and easy paybacks may be ignored, because complex budgeting structures are not designed to reward electricity savings in the facilities department. This may be true even if a comprehensive master plan puts environmental sustainability as an organizational priority. Leith Sharp, writing for Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, notes that, “Even if operating managers do manage to fund efficiency improvements to produce operational savings, they are rarely allowed to capture and reinvest these savings for further improvements. Instead, they will often see next year’s operating funds reduced to reflect this operating cost reduction, hardly a reward for a job well done.”

Sharp, former director of Harvard’s Green Campus Initiative, adds:

"Our institutions freely use the mantra of the “business case” to challenge and scrutinize the viability of anything new without addressing the fact that in many cases the business case is being sabotaged by poorly designed finance and accounting structures. Colleges and universities are incurring enormous additional costs by failing to reform these practices to enable good business practice to flourish … It is not clear how this has evolved, but it occurs in almost all large organizations. This division results in capital budget managers resisting the expenditure of any extra money, even when the operation savings are extraordinary. At the same time, the operating budget managers commonly do not have enough access to funds for ongoing efficiency improvements."

For a problem this complex, master planning is only part of the solution. Sharp goes on to describe the "complex, irrational, and unconscious life of the institution," which sabotages the work of campus sustainability officers and their efforts to bring the campus towards climate neutrality. As examples, she points out energy-purchasing contracts based on volume consumptions (where the unit price of energy goes up when consumption goes down) or steam return-metering. Both systems encourage individual waste, which saves money to a particular building or department, but results in overall system inefficiency.

Harvard was able to make significant progress using a revolving loan model, which funded projects with paybacks of less than five years, and reinvested that money in ongoing upgrades, efficiency projects, metering and behavioral change programs.

But Sharp is aware that this wouldn’t be possible everywhere: Harvard is blessed with more resources than most schools, and a sustainability staff of dozens of people. “The deeper lesson,” she says, “is that we should stop creating the ongoing need for revolving loan funds—by structurally connecting capital and operating budgets and institutionalizing life-cycle costing, a well-established methodology for calculating upfront and future operating costs relating to different decision-making options. I also believe that our organizations should capture and reinvest savings that result from successful resource conservation and waste-reduction efforts as routine practice to fund dedicated annual innovation budgets for financing pilot projects and ongoing efficiency upgrades.”

It’s not exactly a small request. Such redesigning of the university’s essential infrastructure might take years, and it’s a lot harder than installing add-ons to a couple vending machines, or even retrofitting an HVAC system. This doesn’t discourage Sharp. She says, “Over many years, I have observed that the common belief that people are innately adverse to change is not generally true. People are not resistant to change, they are opposed to instability, and they simply assume that change equals instability.”

To achieve this stability, Sharp argues that the sustainability staff need to act as the rudder-on-the-rudder, going beyond simple equations of return-on-investment and discussing the real risks and barriers in play. Only then, she says, can universities bring their carbon footprints “down to an equitable share of what the planet’s life-support systems can support.”

Speaking to the 250 conference attendees here in Oroville, California, Dr. Ploeg described her work at Butte, managing a 928-acre campus (80 acres is reserved for farm use, and there is also a wildlife refuge) and serving approximately 20,000 students a year. The college, located on a wildlife refuge, is committed to sustainability – it uses LEED metrics in all building projects, is powered by 50 percent renewable energy, and incorporates sustainable practices into many other areas of the campus. Dr. Ploeg drives a Prius to the office every day.

Dr. Ken Meier, Butte’s Vice President of Student Learning and Economic Development, also presented, and touched on Butte’s culture of change that focuses on three primary aspects: social equity, environmental stewardship, and economic development. He says a fourth needs to be added – community. He says the role of the American community college is to work with and engage the community, and to serve as an example. “Sustainability it not possible without community involvement,” he said.

The first day of the conference featured speakers from Ohlone College, the Los Angeles Community College District, San Mateo Community College, Bakersfield College, and Co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Price Dr. Woodrow W. Clark II was the afternoon keynote speaker, presenting “On Climate Change and the Future.”

One of the favorite presentations came from an Ohlone graduate, currently a student at UC Berkeley, on eco-behavior, hoping to answer the question – what does it take to change people’s behavior? Maria Javier surveyed several groups of students, finding that:

The environment in which a person grows up seems to have a huge impact on how a person lives as an adult. For example, a student surveyed that grew up in Ohio, in a community that had a strong conservation ethic, was a better steward of the environment as an adult than other students surveyed that grew up in communities without a strong conservation ethic.

Maria also highlighted a site on eco-behavior, Fostering Sustainable Behavior – Community-based Social Marketing, which consists of five resources for those working to foster sustainable behaviors in conservation, energy efficiency, transportation, waste reduction, and water efficiency.

After a day packed full of presentations, attendees had the opportunity to tour the sustainable fields at Lundberg Family Farms.

Kristy Jones is reporting from the 3rd Annual Butte College Sustainability Conference, in Oroville, California.