2011 Soil and Water Stewardship Sunday and Week

2011 Soil and Water Stewardship Sunday and Week

"Forests for People---More Than You Can Imagine" is the theme for the 2011 Stewardship Week sponsored by the National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD). A Forestry Stewardship church leaders guide is available for this the 56th year observance, April 24-May 1, 2011.

With a mission to provide leadership and a voice for natural resource conservation, and with community based outreach offices, the NACD offers down-loadable forestry education resources (energy, habitat, soil, water) such as are age-appropriate, colorful, in various formats (posters, bookmarks, place-mats, activity sheets, a compact disk with a PowerPoint presentation, clip art, etc.), e-links (Arbor Day, International Year of Forests, etc.), carbon calculators, and a series of publications on working trees (for agriculture, communities, water quality, wildlife, livestock, silvopasture, treating waste, carbon cycle balance, and windbreaks).

Some of us recall learning about the usefulness of trees as "food, fuel, fodder, etc." and the current materials, if not used in the Spring, would be adaptable for summer vacation Bible School programs, or any Sunday School efforts.

Here in northern Appalachia, with the debate about the appropriateness of natural gas drilling in state forests, one might consider what the NACD approach is in the issue of leaving wilderness alone, allowing what is pristine to continue to be so, the value of undisturbed state lands for tourism, with the consequences of exploiting a non-renewable fossil fuel in an extractive economy.

Nationally see http://www.nacdnet.org/stewardship/2011/index.phtml

Locally, see Carey Entz, Watershed Specialist, Lycoming County Conservation District, 524 County Farm Road, Suite 202, Montoursville PA 17754. 570-433-3003 E-mail centz@lyco.org .