TREE TALK

Originally published in Capital on April 10, 2008

Acronyms Help Conserve Natural Resources
Understanding the Alphabet Soup

There are a host of organizations both public and private working to conserve natural resources in this country.  The list is long and can be confusing especially when they are identified by their acronyms, a common practice in the bureaucracy of all organization.  This practice probably reached is zenith during the Roosevelt era with the many programs started by the New Deal, called the alphabet soup, by his detractors. 

One of the most influential and important conservation organization in US history was the CCC or Civilian Conservation Corps that constructed many of the facilities in the nations parks and formed the initial groups of wildland firefighters. The CCC operated from 1933 to 1942 when the war effort drew funding and more importantly manpower away from the program.   

To this day acronyms persist, and soup or not, they are how things are named. Doesn’t make them any less confusing though. For example, there’s the DOI, Department of the Interior which has the NPS, National Park Service; the USFWS, or Fish and Wildlife Service, and BLM or Bureau of Land Management under its wings.  

The USDA or US Department of Agriculture has USDAFS or the Forest Service, the NRCS or Natural Resource Conservation Service, nee SCS or Soil Conservation Service.   There’s also the FSA or Farm Services Agency, that caters to farmers mostly but also to forest landowners; they have an administrative role keeping track of cost share programs, crop insurance and the like.  Even the DOD or Department of Defense gets in to the mix, The USACOE or US Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for water use like dams and flood abatement and wetland permitting.  And that’s just a few of the federal agencies. 

At the state level, there’s:

• MDA, or Maryland Department of Agriculture

• The MDA has under its umbrella the SCD or Soil Conservation Districts;

• DNR of Department of Natural Resources,

• MDE  or MD Department of the Environment

• MES or Maryland Environmental Service

It’s enough to make your head swim. 

To list each government organization involved in the conservation effort would probably take up a full page in a newspaper, and then it would have to be single spaced!  Private outfits involved in the conservation effort would likely take another page. 

How much and what kind of involvement a group has of course varies.  The major players are well know, and for good reasons.  They have the size and therefore the resources to make an impact.  Being a big outfit is good; folks will listen when you make an announcement or publish information.  But being a smaller or less well known organization doesn’t mean you are any less effective or less important in your efforts.

Take the case of the SMD RC&D or in non-bureaucratic jargon, the Southern Maryland Resource Conservation and Development program.  A program administered by the NRCS (see above for translation of the acronym) the  RC&D is an organization that is directly involved in hands-on conservation efforts that are as varied as they are important.  Some of the programs they are involved in or have been are:

• Dry Hydrant Construction
  (a program where farm ponds are fitted with a pipe to allow fire engines to draw water from the pond in areas where fire hydrants aren’t found)

• Planting Grasses and Trees for Shoreline Stabilization

• Archeological Restoration

All of the counties in southern MD - Anne Arundel, Calvert ,Charles, Prince George’s and St. Mary’s - are benefiting from the assistance the RC&D program provides.  Not the most well know program but one that’s really having a positive impact in the many communities of Southern Maryland. 

Check out their website at http://www.somdrcd.org  and find out if there’s a way they can help you or your community or to help them out. For example, right now Anne Arundel needs a student representative.   

There is help out there and lots of it; it’s sometimes a matter of finding out who will help and what they are called.  

Note: Baltimore County is holding an Invasive species workshop on April 19^th of this year. If interested drop an email to the address below.

Questions and comments can be directed to ForestGreenway@comcast.net
Bud Reaves writes Tree Talk for the Anne Arundel County Forest Conservancy District Board.

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