Have you heard the buzz? NACD wants you to join us at the 2025 Annual Meeting! Hosted in partnership with the Utah Association of Conservation Districts, next year's meeting will take place in Salt Lake City, UT from February 8-12, 2025. Join us in the Beehive State to explore the theme "Bee the Change: Reaching New Summits in Conservation!"

Registration is now open! Don't let the opportunity fly by. Act now to get an early bird discounted rate.

Full registration includes entry into the National Conservation Showcase, General and Breakout Sessions, Monday’s Leadership Luncheon and NCF Live Auction, and Tuesday's Appreciation Banquet.

Enhanced Agenda

You shared, we listened! NACD is excited to rollout some changes to our schedule of events for next year's meeting. Past meeting attendees have said they especially enjoyed networking, so this meeting will have even more opportunities for you to connect with peers!

Talk with and learn from conservation districts and partners during a full day of engaging breakout sessions on Tuesday. Take advantage of newly added mid-morning breaks to build connections over a cup of coffee.

Join our 90-minute general sessions on Monday and Wednesday morning to hear from speakers who are national conservation leaders, like Pheasants Forever & Quail Forever's President and CEO Marilyn Vetter. Stay through Wednesday to explore and learn more about our “Bee-Utah-ful” host state by joining one of three unique tours in the afternoon!

Ready to book?

All the details on registration and exclusive hotel and travel discounts, including special discounted airfare with Delta Airlines, can be found on NACD's Annual Meeting webpage. If you have any questions or want to be a sponsor for the event, contact events@nacdnet.org. We can't wait to bee in SLC with you!

LAST CHANCE TO SUBMIT APPLICATION FOR TA GRANT

NACD is still accepting proposals for the 2024 Outreach and Technical Assistance Grants (TA2024) program! In partnership with NRCS, NACD anticipates the award of approximately $18 million in conservation operations technical assistance (COTA), Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), and Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) funding. The full Request for Proposals is available on the TA2024 webpage.

Proposals must be submitted by no later than 11:59 p.m. ET on October 7, 2024. 

Applicants are encouraged to submit innovative and impactful project proposals that demonstrate a clear need for technical assistance and a strong potential for positive outcomes. Detailed guidelines and application materials are available on the NACD website.

CONSERVATION COFFEE:

ADVOCACY AND POLICY

NACD is proud to serve as the sole membership organization exclusively for conservation districts nationwide, and we are pleased to offer a variety of services to our members. NACD's ongoing federal advocacy efforts, on behalf of our members, are one of our most important services, and we pride ourselves on representing the needs of districts among our federal partners.

This advocacy directly translates into enabling policies for our members, as well as funding opportunities nationally through the farm bill, various conservation initiatives, and grant programs that NACD offers our members. If you are curious about our policy process, as well as our advocacy efforts, come learn from our Government Affairs team during the next NACD Conservation Coffee on October 10 at 3 p.m. ET! 

NACD's Connor Simons, Government Affairs Specialist, will kick off NACD's fall policy process, discuss how information flows from our state board members into our policy book, and celebrate some recent efforts on behalf of our members. Bring your questions for the team and get ready to learn about how to use your membership voice!

Registration is free online. Please reach out to NACD’s membership team at membership@nacdnet.org if you have any questions about the coffees or would like to present in a future session.

2025 ENVIROTHON STUDY RESOURCES NOW AVAILABLE

The 2025 NCF-Envirothon annual competition, organized by the National Conservation Foundation (NCF) and the Alberta Envirothon Association, is scheduled to take place from July 20-26, 2025, at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Throughout this week-long event, the top qualifying teams from around the world will come together to showcase their knowledge of ecology and natural resources, as well as the special focus on Forest Stewardship. Key sponsors for the 2025 competition include the Forest Resource Improvement Association of Alberta (FRIAA), Weyerhaeuser, West Fraser, Foothills Forest Products, and Canfor.

To prepare teams for the weeklong competition, the NCF-Envirothon and the 2025 Host Committee developed key topics, learning objectives, and study resources in the five areas of study for the teams to study. The first of these study resources, Part A of the 2025 Current Issue special topic “Roots and Resiliency: Fostering Forest Stewardship in a Canopy of Change,” has been posted to the 2025 Alberta Envirothon webpage.

This year's topics focus on fostering environmental stewardship in the face of changing landscapes. Students will delve into how traditional knowledge, values, and histories can play a vital role in addressing the complex environmental challenges we encounter today.

State, provincial, and partner nation Envirothon programs are encouraged to utilize this first set of resources for their local competitions as teams begin studying for the 2025 competitions. A second set of study resources will be posted in May 2025. These will cover the areas of study for aquatic ecology, forestry, soils and land use, wildlife, and Part B of the Current Issue which is more specific to Alberta-related forest stewardship topics.

Complete competition details and the study resources can be found on the Envirothon website. The NCF-Envirothon, an NCF program, is supported through partnership with NACD.

WHAT'S UP IN WASHINGTON?

GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS UPDATES

Last week, Congress passed a continuing resolution (CR) to extend current levels of federal funding until December 20. Lawmakers will need to reach an agreement on a full-year funding bill or pass an additional CR before that deadline.

While the current farm bill expired last week, agriculture committee leaders opted to forgo passing an additional extension in an effort to finalize a full bill in the “lame duck” session after the November election and before the beginning of the new Congress. Lawmakers will need to reach an agreement on a farm bill or a farm bill extension before the end of the calendar year to avoid triggering arcane laws that would increase commodity prices.  

TUALATIN SWCD LEADS CLIMATE RESILIENCE OUTREACH

Like many areas across the West, forests in the Tualatin River Basin of northwest Oregon face two emerging climate resilience concerns: hotter, drier summers and increasing wildfire risk. Heat-related tree stress and mortality are becoming more common across the landscape, and fire season is beginning earlier and ending later in the year, with more frequent ignitions than ever before.  

To identify the most vulnerable communities within the 242,000 forested acres in the basin, Tualatin Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) organized focus groups, gathered existing data, and led new research to conduct a forest resilience prioritization analysis. The analysis examined aspects, slopes, soils, vegetation, and past disturbances across the landscape and included wildfire severity and probability modeling from Oregon State University (OSU) Extension. The results identified several distinct communities with the highest cumulative vulnerability.  

“I presented our findings to some colleagues at the Oregon Department of Forestry and OSU Extension and was very excited when they expressed shared concerns about these specific communities because of forest health issues and wildfire,” said Brandy Saffell, Tualatin SWCD Forest Conservation Specialist. “We also agreed that the communities in the southwest corner of the basin, around Hagg Lake, are of particular concern because of two recent fires in 2020.” 

Read more about how the Tualatin SWCD addressed these findings in the full blog on NACD's website.