The majority of the land in the United States is privately owned, so America’s farmers, ranchers, and foresters are critical to the health of our natural resources. To exchange ideas about agriculture and conservation, Sand County Foundation, Nebraska Cattlemen, Nebraska Land Trust, and University of Nebraska – Lincoln’s Center for Grassland Studies will bring together dozens of Leopold Conservation Award-winning landowner conservationists for “Innovations on the Land: Private Conservation for the Public Good.”
The symposium will convene leading farmers, ranchers, and foresters to address private-public partnerships, conservation and economics, and other issues important to the agricultural community and the general public.
There are several goals for this gathering. First, it will provide an opportunity for Leopold Conservation Award recipients, other landowners, award partners and sponsors to educate, interact, and exchange ideas with award recipients from other states. Second, bringing Leopold Conservation Award recipients together to address challenges will help us all to identify innovative solutions and opportunities involved in private lands conservation. This interaction and subsequent conversations will foster a sense of community among the award recipients and generate ideas of how they, as a growing national group, could tackle important agricultural and environmental issues. Our third goal is to develop education and communications materials incorporating and crystallizing themes and discussions covered during the conference. To do so will allow participants to carry the information beyond the symposium to families across the nation who work the land.
Join us and have a seat at the table for conversations that will address potential solutions to the most critical agricultural and environmental issues facing our nation today.
A tour of the Leopold Conservation Award recipient family’s ranch, near Raymond, on September 20 demonstrated how critical ranching families are to the health of South Dakota’s natural resources. The tour of Jim and Karen Kopriva’s ranch occurred on a day that was deemed “Leopold Conservation Award Day” in a proclamation by South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard in which he recognized the importance of conservation on South Dakota’s private lands and specifically applauded the Koprivas’ “commitment to the health of South...
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