AUSTIN, Texas - If you've ever looked at a plant and wondered how it fits into the ecosystem, well, now there's an app for that. The Botanical Research Institute of Texas, the international award-winning non-profit based in Fort Worth, has created a new digital tool to promote conservation and learning.

The institute's special projects coordinator Zoey Gossett says the app is great for amateur botanists, teachers and students. She says it's ideally suited to help sparks a kid's natural curiosity and to get them outside.

"The younger generation loves technology, and so what better way to engage them than having a application tool that they can use on hand, look at a plant, and learn about the anatomy of the plant while they're doing that," she says.

The app includes a user-friendly key to help identify plants quickly based on common features. It also comes with a glossary, links to information about plant families, and color photographs of live plants.

Gossett says the project focuses on the north Texas region because it's a unique, often undervalued ecosystem that's also home to a very large population of people.

The Botanical Research Institute hopes the new digital tool will help foster an appreciation for the natural beauty of the Fort Worth prairie and its plants, and increase awareness of how the prairie connects to Texans' daily lives.

"They provide oxygen," says Gossett. "They provide food for insects that in themselves pollinate the plant to provide food for us."

Gossett reasons the more you learn about how plants and humans work together, the easier it is to make more environmentally conscientious decisions in your own back yard.

The app comes with images, technical descriptions, and information on the relationship between plants and people. It includes more than 300 plants from across the Fort Worth prairie and parts of the Western Cross Timbers.


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HIGH POINT, N.C. - The National Wildlife Federation and Sustainable Furnishings Council have released the latest list of furniture retailers who rely on sustainably sourced wood.

Companies such as Cisco Home, Williams-Sonoma, The Arrangement and Working Wonders ranked at the top for sustainable practices.

Susan Inglis - executive director of the Sustainable Furnishings Council - said the scorecard is both a guide for conscientious consumers and a blueprint for retailers seeking to improve their wood-sourcing standards.

"These companies have all made a commitment to sourcing their wood products carefully," said Inglis, "so as to avoid contributing to deforestation."

North Carolina is home to the fifth-largest wood-product manufacturing industry in the nation. The Scorecard is available online at 'sustainablefurnishings.org.'

Barbara Bramble - vice president for International Wildlife Conservation at the National Wildlife Federation - explained that much of the wood used to make furniture is harvested from natural forests, but she said wood production can be done sustainably without worsening deforestation.

Around 30% of the world's forests are production forests.

"A lot of wood harvests around the world are illegal," said Bramble, "and unsustainable in other ways, damaging to forests and soils and water quality, but it doesn't have to be that way."

Inglis said the scorecard goes beyond home decor, pointing out that when trees are cut down, their stored carbon is released into the environment. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, tropical deforestation makes up around 20% of annual global greenhouse-gas emissions.

"Consumers do understand more and more that healthy forests have something to do with our being able to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change," said Inglis.

Bramble said momentum is growing in wood-dependent industries to step up policies and practices that promote responsibly sourced wood.

"Even during this last year and a half of the COVID pandemic," said Bramble, "we have found that the number of companies getting involved in the wood furniture scorecard, getting interested in increasing their score, has gone up with each installment each year."

About a third of wood extracted from natural forests worldwide is used for timber products, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Now through November, Pennsylvania groups will plant an estimated 300,000 trees for fall, as part of a goal of 10 million new trees in the state by 2025.

The Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership is one of the projects the state and organizations are undertaking to get Pennsylvania on track for its 2025 Chesapeake Bay pollution-reduction plan.

By planting 10 million trees, the state can meet its goal of 95,000 acres of riparian buffers, where native trees and shrubs are planted next to waterways to help prevent nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment pollution from finding its way into Chesapeake Bay.

Brenda Sieglitz, senior manager of the Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said it has been increasing the biodiversity of the trees they offer, including species such as sugar maple, hazelnut and pawpaw.

"We really encourage people to try and take the trees and not only increase forestation in Pennsylvania but use it as a resource as well to maybe increase food production or use it as a way to maybe add something to their farm by way of fruit and nut production," Sieglitz outlined.

The 10 Million Trees program works with about 200 partners throughout the state to plant trees along waterways, in cities with low tree canopy, and on abandoned mine land. Half of the freshwater flowing into Chesapeake Bay comes from Pennsylvania.

A Ten Million Trees partner, the Swatara Watershed Association, takes care of Swatara Creek, which starts in Schuylkill County and feeds into the Susquehanna River in Dauphin County.

Bethany Canner, vice president of the Association, said they have planted an estimated 750 trees so far. She noted the addition of more trees to the regional landscape has a positive impact on wildlife.

"Every time we put a development in, every time we put a new road in, we're taking away habitat," Canner explained. "The more trees we can get in, it provides a greater habitat that some of these species that need greater chunks of woods to survive, you know, it helps them to be able to survive."

Project partners planted over 1 million trees so far this year and hope to plant 800,000 more this spring.

OLD LYME, Conn. -- Connecticut soon will join a majority of East Coast states in having a federally recognized estuary, which could help identify environmental threats to waterways and natural resources within Long Island Sound.

The creation of a Natural Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) in Connecticut would bring up to $1 million per year for scientific study and education. Supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the proposed reserve areas include up the Connecticut River, which feeds into the eastern part of Long Island Sound.

Patrick Comins, executive director of the Connecticut Audubon Society, said although the reserve funding does not go specifically toward conservation, it will help streamline the efforts.

"What it will do is allow us to collect more data so when there are willing landowners within the boundary, who want to have their land preserved," Comins explained. "This will help to justify the appropriation of funds to protect that property by saying it's a part of the NERR and other great things about the Long Island Sound-Thames-Connecticut River Estuary."

The Audubon Society has been involved in the reserve planning process. NOAA is taking public comments through next Monday, October 18th. Comins noted they expect the specific boundaries of the reserve to be announced by January.

Comins pointed out an estimated 400 species are at risk within the proposed reserve, including the wood turtle and saltmarsh sparrow. He added conducting research for the project has impacted the organization's conservation priorities.

"This process has caused Connecticut Audubon Society to have much more of a focus on our estuary and migratory fishes than we had in the past," Comins emphasized. "And we're hoping that it'll provide a lot more information about these species of conservation concern and allow us to be much more proactive in our conservation effort."

According to the reserve's environmental impact statement, Long Island Sound is considered one of the most valuable estuaries in the country and, similar to other waterways, is under threat from pollution and the effects of climate change.