Just 40 years ago this Wed., April 22, 1970, the environmental movement splashed into the headlines as 20 million Americans turned out to mark the first Earth Day, the creation of Wisconsin environmentalist and U.S. Senator, Gaylord Nelson. Learn more about what it means to us today at http://www.earthday.org. This Sunday, April 25, there will be a massive Climate Rally on the national mall in Washington, D.C.

But Earth Day can start in your own backyard. In my own, this Wed., on a 6-acre arm of old oak forest, we will be doing a professional burn as part of a 2-year program to restore this old woods by ridding it of exotics and clearing the ground so that new young oaks might again spring up. This is part of a USDA-sponsored conservation restoration program.

Here in the Geneva Lakes area of southeastern Wisconsin, many people support community conservation efforts.
Our local land trust, The Geneva Lake Conservancy, where I’ve served on the board for a decade, permanently protects nearly a thousand acres of natural habitat on private and public lands through conservation easements. These voluntary land protection agreements allow communities, companies and individual land owners to create their own permanent reserves of natural habitat, which will remain through successive generations regardless of other nearby development. Learn more about land conservation strategies at http://www.genevalakeconservancy.org.

Protecting the environmental character of our own backyards, our greater communities and of our entire green earth is how we and you can make every day a good Earth Day.