You might think I’d be in a pissy mood this morning watching the fate of the world hang in the balance, and you’d pretty much be right. But hey there’s good beaver news for our friends with the best logo. So that’s something.

NRCS Oregon awards 5 Conservation Innovation Grants to develop new technologies for agriculture

PORTLAND, Ore. – (November 3, 2020) – USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is awarding more than $14.6 million in grants in states across the country to support the development of innovative systems, tools, and technologies for production and conservation on agricultural lands. Funds are provided through the Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) program, which awards grants to organizations, universities, and others that are developing innovations to support farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners.

The Beaver Coalition – Empowering voluntary non-lethal solutions to beaver conflicts

This project will look pragmatically at the potential for long-term solutions where beavers and their dams can remain in place — but the human/beaver conflicts can be resolved. The project will demonstrate the importance of a careful site assessment to determine the likely benefits and challenges for each unique situation. From a common understanding of the problem and potential room for a solution, The Beaver Coalition will design an adaptive management strategy with the landowner or producer, with consideration of potential intended and unintended consequences of the use of nonlethal devices. The implementation approaches in this project have been proven to be successful in a variety of contexts and can be cost-effective ways to empower landowners to resolve their beaver woes for the long term. The Beaver Coalition intends to show how pond levelers, culvert protection systems, tree-wrapping, and even an act as simple as coating a tree’s trunk with a paint-sand mixture, are proven methods to resolve conflicts while maintaining beavers’ beneficial active role on the landscape, enhancing water security, salmon recovery, and resiliency to wildfire.

First of all let me just say that WHO KNEW USDA even gave awards for conservation? Not me, that’s for sure. Well done beaver friends! And second of all WHO KNEW that they would EVER give an award for saving beavers non lethally???? WOWOWOWOW. That’s like getting a pet grooming award from the dog catchers association, Or a  best vegetarian prize from the Cattlemen’s association.

YOU ROCK!

Worth A Dam wants to spend hours hearing all about how much, and what the project looks like and the details of what it was like to apply. But mostly we just want to say GOOD JOB!