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  • As floods increase, cities like Detroit are looking to green stormwater infrastructure

    In Detroit, a city with plenty of open space, there is ample opportunity for green stormwater infrastructure to help the city better manage water. The dual goal of decreasing water pollution and better managing flood conditions has already started with the 16 GSI projects in use. A new approach to water drainage fees based on amount of land has incentivized business owners to implement their own stormwater-reducing measures. The city plans to spend $50 million more on these efforts in the next ten years.

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  • Female Farmers are Coming into Their Own—and Networking is Key to Their Success

    As the number of women in agriculture grows, a group of female farmers in Wisconsin participate in a networking cooperative called In Her Boots. Starting as a 12-person potluck, members of In Her Boots now come from more than 20 different counties and swap knowhow more specific to women, such as how to adjust farming practices to fit a smaller frame or how to apply for farm grants. The group is still growing and is now part of a data-gathering metric from the University of Wisconsin which aims to measure the growth of women in sustainable farming.

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  • One Way to Combat Climate Change: A Smartphone App That Lets Farmers Control Where Their Cows Graze

    A San Diego startup called Vence has created a device that can help farmers control their livestock’s movements and behavior. The new technology – a collar with accompanying software – buzzes when an animal is somewhere it shouldn’t be and shocks them if they keep going. While the practice of shocking animals isn’t universally approved, doing so can prevent overgrazing and thus improve overall land health.

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  • Decades of wise use pay off for a Kabale wetland

    In 1980, the Ugandan government signed an agreement with local communities in the Mugandu–Buramba wetland that gave them the right to own, manage, and conserve their own property. Today, the wetlands are thriving —reducing degradation and improving biodiversity— and creating a livelihood for the 276 people that live there. The government says that since they are using the land responsibly, their agreement will continue.

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  • Can This Breakfast Cereal Help Save The Planet?

    Human beings' reliance on crops like wheat and rice has a detrimental environmental effect: because these annual crops need replanting every year, farmers are required to destroy any existing vegetation in order to get the seeds to germinate. But scientists with the Land Institute are promoting kernza, a perennial relative of wheat that provides seeds year after year.

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  • Despite Many Challenges, the U.S. Has More Young Farmers Than it Did Five Years Ago

    With the average age of the American farmer at 57.5 and the number of farmers over 65 outnumbering farmers under 35 by a factor of 6 to 1, many are worried about a severe shortage of ecologically-minded young farmers to take over from the older generation. To address this gap, states and institutions are launching initiatives like debt-free agricultural college, tax incentives, and loan programs.

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  • This Appalachian town was America's ‘fattest city.' Here's how it slimmed down.

    After gaining attention in 2008 for having an obesity crisis, the city of Huntington, West Virginia started making slow and steady changes that have culminated into positive changes in the community's overall health. From a food market that gives back to the farmers and artisans that contribute to it to school cafeteria reform, the city has seen their obesity rate decrease and has shifted to a collective healthier mindset overall.

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  • Coffee helps protect Uganda's endangered mountain gorillas

    For many poachers near Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, hunting is crucial to their livelihoods, even as regulations against the practice have increased. To help combat this, social enterprises like Gorilla Conservation Coffee are working to make coffee farming a sustainable and financially stable alternative. However, the model still needs some tweaks to ensure that farmers are adequately supported and the business can meet demand.

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  • How a small community in the northeastern corner of India became the country's first green village

    The village of Khonoma, in India's Nagaland state, focuses its effort on wildlife conservation through community-organized hunting reduction efforts and sustainable agriculture practices. These efforts led to the creation of the Khonoma sanctuary, which provides a safe-haven for the area's endangered species as well as serves as space for traditional sustainable farming practices -- like planting vegetables at the base of alder trees, which produce rich soil.

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  • Waste to Wealth: How Kenyan farmers are bringing life back to degraded Lake Victoria swamps

    Families living in the wetlands of Lake Victoria in Kisumu, Kenya are working together with a nonprofit called Ecofinder Kenya to protect and conserve the wetlands they live on. The crux of the incentive centers around the Eocfinder toilet, which converts human and animal waste to biogas, but they also work with solar lamps, water pumps, and a "farmer-to-farmer" program in which farmers share environmentally-friendly expertise. The program has been going on for 3 years now, and the wetlands have since seen a return of wildlife and growth, particularly with fish and birds.

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