Pennsylvania: Students in Elk County Pennsylvania, about 120 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, were served a meal of entirely locally grown food on September 16, 2009. Ridgeway Area School District Superintendent Tom Butler used the locally grown meal to teach the community about the importance of nutrition and supporting local farmers. The meal included locally grown blueberries, sweet corn, mixed vegetables and beef.

Washington: Every year, more than 100 canoes from Coastal Salish tribes in Washington and British Columbia paddle for days from all directions to gather at Suquamish near Seattle. This year five of the canoes carried U.S. Geological Survey equipment to measure the health and quality of the water between Washington and British Columbia, often called the Salish Sea. The project is a melding of science and native traditions and, tribal participants say, a call to protect water quality in the Salish Sea. Brian Cladoosby, chairman of the Swinomish tribe in Western Washington, said “The health of the Salish Sea is a very serious concern for us,” and noted that all tribes have been affected by loss of natural resources.

South Carolina: Each year in South Carolina about 45,000 dove hunters harvest 900,000 mourning doves. Dove hunters stimulate the South Carolina Lowcountry economy and encourage land conservation to provide habitat for doves, quail, ducks, turkey, marsh hens and other birds. Many landowners who have populations of game birds on their property have put land holdings in conservation easements.

Arizona: Each spring, farmers in Chandler and Casa Grande herd thousands of domestic sheep to cooler northern Arizona and back south in the fall. The Western Watersheds Project is suing sheep farmers to block their herding path, which runs across U.S. Forest Service land. The Western Watersheds Project charges that herding the sheep through the forests threatens wild bighorn sheep. One of the major risks to wild bighorn sheep is the transmission of a lung disease called Pasteurella from domestic sheep.

Contact: Virginia Wolking, virginiaw@cfra.org or 402.687.2103 x 1017 for more information or to suggest items for Across the Nation.