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Observations on the Land and Water Conservation Fund

Within the Park Service budget is a very important program that helps to permanently protect land and water for all Americans, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). Unfortunately, LWCF has only been fully funded a handful of times – despite its record of having protected over 5 million acres of public lands. Find out more about it did in this year’s budget.

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NHA@30 New National Parks in the 1990s: Thinning of the Blood or a Much Needed Transfusion?

Reflections on a paper, originally written in 1991, which argued in favor of managing park units at a landscape scale. More than 20 years later, this concept is a widely accepted conservation practice, yet the National Park Service often still struggles in engaging its National Heritage Area partners in implementing these ideas in jointly in regions across the country.

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Credit: Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area

A Holistic Approach to Open Space

The Rensselaer Plateau in New York State offers an exciting case study in collaboration, with public and private stakeholders joining together to foster conservation across property lines and political jurisdictions. The plateau is one of 165 conservation initiatives in the Northeast, from West Virginia to Maine, applying “a whole systems, large landscape approach” as part of a project by the Regional Plan Association. Learn more about the origins and outcomes of this model.

Read More »

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court Offers a Lesson in Conservation History

As Pennsylvania confronts the next massive wave of resource extraction – natural gas drilling, its citizens now have a primer on the lessons from their past owing to a recent decision from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on the constitutionality of Act 13, legislation from 2012 that sought to accommodate natural gas drilling. Learn more about what the court had to say about this controversial law.

Read More »

Observations on the Land and Water Conservation Fund

Within the Park Service budget is a very important program that helps to permanently protect land and water for all Americans, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). Unfortunately, LWCF has only been fully funded a handful of times – despite its record of having protected over 5 million acres of public lands. Find out more about it did in this year’s budget.

Read More »

NHA@30 New National Parks in the 1990s: Thinning of the Blood or a Much Needed Transfusion?

Reflections on a paper, originally written in 1991, which argued in favor of managing park units at a landscape scale. More than 20 years later, this concept is a widely accepted conservation practice, yet the National Park Service often still struggles in engaging its National Heritage Area partners in implementing these ideas in jointly in regions across the country.

Read More »
Credit: Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area

A Holistic Approach to Open Space

The Rensselaer Plateau in New York State offers an exciting case study in collaboration, with public and private stakeholders joining together to foster conservation across property lines and political jurisdictions. The plateau is one of 165 conservation initiatives in the Northeast, from West Virginia to Maine, applying “a whole systems, large landscape approach” as part of a project by the Regional Plan Association. Learn more about the origins and outcomes of this model.

Read More »

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court Offers a Lesson in Conservation History

As Pennsylvania confronts the next massive wave of resource extraction – natural gas drilling, its citizens now have a primer on the lessons from their past owing to a recent decision from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on the constitutionality of Act 13, legislation from 2012 that sought to accommodate natural gas drilling. Learn more about what the court had to say about this controversial law.

Read More »