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LAND CONSERVATION
In 1930, former Maine governor Percival Baxter began buying land around Mount Katahdin; 32 years later, he had donated about 201,000 acres and left millions to keep them wildPercival Baxter, a wealthy Mainer, dedicated his life to protecting Mount Katahdin. He spent his inheritance buying and donating land for c...
In 1962, a conservationist moved to a near-barren Bermuda island without electricity or a phone; 47 years later, its first cahow chick in 300 years fledgedA young conservationist moved to Nonsuch Island in 1962 to restore its lost forest. David Wingate planted over 10,000 native seedlings to r...
No huge budget: Actor Madhavan salutes Tamil Nadu IAS officer for turning 1200 abandoned borewells into rainwater harvesting units; water level rises to 5 to 10 feetAn IAS officer repurposed over 1,200 abandoned borewells into rainwater harvesting units that have earned praise from Dhurandhar 2 actor R ...
How actor Morgan Freeman turned his 124-acre ranch in Mississippi into a safe haven for beesHollywood actor Morgan Freeman transformed his ranch into a bee sanctuary. He began beekeeping in 2014 after learning about pollinator decl...
Texas released 3 million captive-bred eggs to save this endangered amphibian. It may be workingA male Houston toad was sighted in Bastrop County, Texas, after a 50-year absence. This sighting follows the release of millions of captive...
Australia built an A$187,000 electric fence across wild horse country; inside lies an endangered alpine wetland supporting three threatened animalsAn electric fence protects a rare alpine wetland in Australia's Kosciuszko National Park. This small area is home to three threatened nativ...
In 1861, an English lord sent three red deer to New Zealand for sport; the animals multiplied until government hunters were killing 50,000 a yearThree deer introduced in 1861 multiplied into a national crisis. New Zealand's government hired men to kill 50,000 deer annually. These cul...
In 2001, a USDA scientist released beetles to destroy an invasive tree, but they eliminated 94% of an endangered bird's habitat along one riverAn invasive beetle introduced to control tamarisk trees has devastated flycatcher nesting grounds. This beetle, released by the USDA, succe...
In the 1770s, Captain Cook released pigs and goats in New Zealand to feed future sailors; their feral descendants began destroying native bushCaptain Cook introduced pigs and goats to New Zealand's Ship Cove in 1770 for future sailors. These animals became significant threats to n...
In 1992, Douglas Tompkins began buying Chilean wilderness; decades later, much of it became the 994,000-acre Pumalín National Park, larger than YosemiteDouglas Tompkins bought vast tracts of land in Chile for conservation. He created Pumalín National Park, a reserve larger than Yosemite. Lo...
In the 1930s, the Dust Bowl devastated America but Franklin D. Roosevelt's massive tree-planting project is still protecting US farmland nearly 90 years laterThe Dust Bowl is one of the worst environmental disasters in American history, but it also sparked one of the country's largest conservatio...
An American gambler spent $90 million buying 54,000 acres of logged Florida land; 8 million longleaf pines later, a lost forest is returningM.C. Davis transformed 54,000 acres of Florida Panhandle land into a longleaf pine forest. This ecosystem, once widespread, had nearly vani...
In 1934, a New York socialite bought the Pennsylvania mountain where hunters shot hundreds of hawks; the killing stopped almost overnightRosalie Edge established Hawk Mountain Sanctuary after seeing a photograph of dead hawks. This sanctuary holds the world's oldest continuou...
In 1935, the United States began planting 220 million trees from Texas to Canada to stop the Dust Bowl, creating 18,600 miles of living windbreaks by 1942Giant dust storms ravaged the American Great Plains during the 1930s. President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated a massive tree planting pro...
Roberto, Nelson and Eleanor: As wildfires intensify, Spain is relying on an unexpected firefighting team of rescue donkeys to stop deadly forest fires naturally—and Canada is exploring the same solutionA Spanish region is using rescued donkeys to prevent devastating wildfires because these animals graze on dry vegetation, creating natural ...
A juice company dumped 1,000 truckloads of orange peel on dead Costa Rican pastures in 1997; 16 years later, the plot had 176% more biomass than the land beside itA Costa Rican juice company's waste helped restore a degraded pasture. Discarded orange peels and pulp enriched the soil, fostering new gro...
On a savanna so acidic that experts called it dead, a Colombian community planted a forest of Caribbean pines for resin; under their shade, a rainforest nobody planted came back on its ownA Colombian community transformed acidic land into a thriving rainforest. Caribbean pine plantations, aided by a fungus, initiated this eco...
A couple gave up on a failing Sussex farm, pulled out the fences and let 3,500 acres go feral; it became the template for British rewildingA British farm, once burdened by debt, became a successful rewilding project. Free-roaming herbivores were introduced to restore the land's...
In 1969, a Texas businessman asked a realtor to find him the worst ranch available; decades later, the lifeless land had become a 5,500-acre preserve with flowing springs and 220 bird speciesA Texas businessman transformed a severely degraded ranch into a thriving nature preserve. He cleared invasive cedar trees and planted nati...
Goa declares 1.02 crore sq m of eco-sensitive land as No Development ZoneGoa has declared over one crore square meters of sensitive land as a No Development Zone. This decision protects paddy fields and fragile e...