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Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is best known for a few things: It’s the world’s busiest airport, seeing over 100,000,000 passengers every year. It’s also massive, employing over 60,000 people, making it Georgia’s largest employer. But there's something else about it that very few people know.
This webinar (recorded on November 18, 2020) features the Working Farms Fund, an innovative pilot program launched in metro Atlanta to create a healthier, more equitable and resilient food system with ambitions to expand nationwide. Working Farms Fund stops farmland loss before it is too late and invests in the future of our food system to secure long-term outcomes for healthy food production, climate, economic justice, and conservation.
This film tells the story of The Conservation Fund's partnership with the Alaska Native Village of Eklutna to remove a deadbeat dam and restore Pacific salmon.
See how The Conservation Fund and Goldman Sachs worked together to issue the nation’s first green bond solely dedicated to conserving and protecting working forests in the United States.
“It’s easy to imagine that fish are always abundant and they’re always there, but that’s not always the case,” says Dr. David Fielder, Ph.D Research Biologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, as he reflects on the decline of natural fish habitat in Saginaw Bay, Michigan.
“We need to keep farms working. And young people that want to do this, who are capable of doing it ... they just need a shot.”
- James Vaughn, 63-year-old, multi-generational farmer
“In order to scale up there’s going to have to be a lot of capital coming into the farm. At my age, most people have not built the capital to have access to land.”
- Demetrius Milling, 24-year-old, next generation farmer
With the average age of U.S. farmers approaching 60 years old, it’s time to think about the future of farming in America.
“Matt and I always dreamed of owning a ranch of our own, but we never thought it was a reality,” says Stacy Crabb, as she looks out over the 9,000 acre ranch she and her husband managed for 11 years.
The Rocky Mountain front of Montana is a magical landscape, but like so many landscapes in the west, it is at risk of development. Both wildlife and the ranching lifestyle that has co-existed for generations is being threatened.
When a large working forest is broken up—subdivided for development or sold off into smaller pieces—nothing can put these ecosystems back together again. Breaking up the forest like this harms its ability to clean the air and filter the water for entire regions, protect critical habitat for wildlife to roam, and keep local jobs and rural economies intact.
In 2014, the Fund purchased 30,000 acres of forestland across New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine through our Working Forest Fund. This included 5,435 acres that encompass 27 percent of the Beebe River watershed. During our ownership, we’ve worked with the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Trout Unlimited and the U.S. Forest Service – White Mountain National Forest to improve water quality and restore fish passage on these five tributaries.
