Fort Sill habitat restoration provides new opportunities for hunters
On about 40 acres, with roughly 300 acres scheduled to follow, Fort Sill’s Natural Resources team is carrying out what foresters call timber stand improvement. In plain language, it means thinning the understory of older, overgrown forest to let light back in.
Read Article
Conserving South Atlantic salt marsh through collective action
The South Atlantic Salt Marsh Initiative (SASMI) is a voluntary, non-regulatory partnership of individuals working together to protect and restore salt marshes across a four-state region from North Carolina to Florida. This regional initiative is coordinated by NRI’s Amanda Gobeli, who oversees federal, state, and local partner organizations and engagement for the implementation of their conservation plan. We recently sat down with Gobeli to discuss how her role within SASMI is shaping the defense against specific threats to our coastal salt marshes.
Read Article
Nationwide effort to protect pollinators gains momentum
Pollinators, including bees, bats, butterflies, and birds, are vital to U.S. ecosystems and food security. These species transfer pollen from a flower’s stamen to its pistil, enabling fertilization and the production of fruits and seeds for plants that cannot self-pollinate. They support biodiversity and enhance crop yields, significantly contributing to the productivity of working lands and the economy.
Read Article
NRI expands web tools to help protect military training spaces from incompatible development
With funding from DOD's Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation, NRI developed the new Texas Compatible Use Zones (TCUZ) Viewer (tcuz.nri.tamu.edu), the first centralized web tool to display military compatible use zones (using DOD AICUZ and ICUZ data) for active-duty installations across the state. The TCUZ Viewer helps anyone considering development near a military installation in Texas identify whether their location of interest may conflict with military operations in that area.
Read Article
Up to $3 million available for landowners to protect natural resources near Camp Bullis
The Camp Bullis Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) is now accepting applications from voluntary landowners interested in permanently protecting their land and natural resources through conservation easements. These tailored easements support compatible land uses, such as agriculture, wildlife habitat, and open space, that also help safeguard the military mission and training capabilities of Joint Base San Antonio–Camp Bullis.
Read Article
Working Lands, Wildlife: A Wild Goose Chase Win
In the rolling Baraboo Hills of Wisconsin, just a quarter mile from Aldo Leopold’s Shack—where A Sand County Almanac took root—a diverse group of two dozen gathered for the Wild Goose Chase II meeting. Private landowners, conservationists, federal agency leaders, policy experts, and academics united with a shared goal: conserving species while keeping America’s working lands thriving.
Read Article
Creative Solutions for Species Management: The ESA Toolbox
Today, the DOD manages over 500 species listed as either threatened or endangered under the ESA and hundreds more “species-at-risk” that may warrant federal protection in the future. The DOD is committed to providing conditions compatible with conducting military training, testing, and operational missions while ensuring the conservation of ecosystems on which these species depend. However, in some circumstances, overlap between military mission activities and species habitats can result in area access and training constraints. Creatively managing the military mission and species conservation can reduce—or even eliminate—potential conflicts.
Read Article
NRI Announces Funding for Land Management to Private Landowners within the Camp Bullis Sentinel Landscape
The Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute (NRI), through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), is offering over $1 million in funding to support private landowners within the Camp Bullis Sentinel Landscape.
Read Article
Advancing military readiness and ecological resiliency in the Hill Country
NRI facilitates private land conservation through the Camp Bullis Sentinel Landscape
Read Article
SERPPAS: Red-cockaded Woodpecker Downlisted
We are excited to share the announcement from the Department of Interior that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is downlisting the red-cockaded woodpecker from endangered to threatened status under the Endangered Species Act.
Read Article