forests that pose minimal threat of wildfire destruction to forest communities.
U.S. Forest Service photo by Lynn Olson
Conservation on a Landscape Scale
The Four Forest Restoration Initiative is just one example of a growing trend within the USDA’s conservation efforts: landscape scale conservation, or efforts that cross government and managementarea boundaries in order to restore sustainable conditions over a wider area. Because more than half the
A hiker on the Santa Lucia Trail in the Ventana Wilderness (post 2008 fire).
nation’s total land area is devoted to agricultural use – including cropland, pasture, rangeland, and grazed forests – the department continually seeks ways to protect and improve the environmental health of these vast, interconnected spaces. The USDA is currently at work on 10 initiatives across the United States, applying the most effective conservation practices in the places most likely to increase agricultural and ecological returns on investments. Throughout Florida’s northern Everglades, for example, the USDA has helped to conserve
AMERICAN AGRICULTURE
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