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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Midnight Meadows in northern New Mexico's Carson National Forest is one of 22 sites identified as "wetland jewels," and volunteers will continue their work to keep it that way starting Friday.

Restoration has been underway since 2016 to install erosion and restoration structures including Zuni bowls, one-rock dams and rock rundowns. The project, organized by the Albuquerque Wildlife Federation and the environmental group Amigos Bravos, follows the principles of "induced meandering" to hold more water on the landscape.

Shannon Romeling, projects and foundation coordinator for the group Amigos Bravos, said restoration also includes fence construction to reduce possible damage from snowmobiles.

"These wetlands contribute vital function to the ecosystem, including soil health, ecosystem diversity," Romeling explained. "Having things like trout and different sensitive species in them and one of the largest things that they provide is water storage."

The annual three-day event starts Friday and wraps up Sunday with overnight accommodations for those who stay the weekend. It's also possible to volunteer for activities on Saturday only.

Romeling pointed out a unique undertaking this year will be the creation and installation of log swales.

"These are features made from natural materials that will help to decrease damage from recreation and cattle in a sensitive fen area of the wetland," Romeling noted.

In addition to smaller hand-built structures, volunteers have helped install and repair riparian protection along Bitter Creek and adjacent wetlands.

Thousands of former mines, brownfield sites, and orphaned oil and gas wells are scattered across West Virginia, and a new report from the National Wildlife Federation highlights how cleaning up the land could help fight climate change.

Reforesting just 25% of abandoned mine lands could potentially trap around 232 metric tons of carbon each year, according to the report.

Anger Rosser, executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, said in addition to curbing greenhouse gas emissions, it would help protect homes by reducing flood and landslide risks.

"The better we restore those lands, the better we're protecting our communities from those types of costs and disasters," Rosser contended.

Ongoing research pointed to the biomass and soil on reclaimed lands as a sink for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. One West Virginia study found reclaimed mine soils captured 75% of carbon within the first decade of cleanup.

Rosser pointed out the unoccupied and once-hazardous land has the potential to help diversify local economies in the Mountain State after it is restored, through renewable energy development and outdoor recreation and tourism.

"What this comes down to is re-envisioning and transforming a community liability into a community asset," Rosser explained.

Jessica Arriens, program manager for climate energy policy at the National Wildlife Federation, predicted a surge of recent funding for cleaning up degraded lands will benefit both the health of communities and the climate.

"There's really historic investments coming to degraded lands reclamation," Arriens emphasized. "It's largely from the bipartisan infrastructure law that passed last year, that has something like $21 billion for abandoned mine lands, for orphan oil and gas wells, for Superfunds, and for brownfields."

The report calls on Congress to increase annual funding for nationwide Superfund site cleanup, emergency response and removal, and brownfield redevelopment.

The Inflation Reduction Act has made a historic investment of $370 billion dollars to fight climate change over the next decade.

Among its benefits, the act will provide tax credits for Rural Electric Cooperatives to move toward clean energy.

Brianna Knisley is Tennessee campaign manager for Appalachian Voices - a founding member of the Rural Power Coalition.

She said the act significantly changes the economic landscape for Tennessee public utilities or not-for-profit utilities, to implement renewable energy and energy efficiency.

"There are some new pots of funding for electric cooperatives to transition," said Knisley. "And then also, the direct pay tax credit for renewable energy has been extended to nonprofit entities, which means co-ops and municipal utilities can now access that tax credit."

Meanwhile, Knisley noted that access to tax credits may be limited because of barriers that the Tennessee Valley Authority has put in place.

TVA produces all electricity in the state.

She added that utilities that distribute power - which includes the electric co-ops - are in long-term or never-ending contracts with TVA and those contracts limit how much solar energy they can generate themselves.

Knigley noted that there are key provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act that would benefit co-ops.

She said the provision of $9.7 billion of U.S. Department of Agriculture Assistance for Electric Cooperatives is going to co-ops that can achieve the greatest greenhouse-gas emission reductions.

She said a second provision will benefit co-ops in Tennessee.

"Now, the next item," said Knisley, "the $1 billion in additional funding to cover the cost of loans related to renewable energy, that program, I think, is one that co-ops and Tennessee could take advantage of and are hopefully going to be really interested in because up to 50% of the cost of those loans can be forgiven."

Meanwhile, she said the electric cooperatives have recently warned customers that they may receive higher energy bills soon.

She noted the higher prices are a result of a fuel cost adjustment from the TVA. The increase is primarily because of natural gas prices.