An Iowa county has received money as part of a $48.5 million federal grant to protect the rusty patched bumble bee and preserve its habitat.

The grant is aimed at restoring endangered species and their habitats across the country. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has allocated more than $635,000 to Winneshiek County to protect the bee and its native surroundings.

Pam Mackey-Taylor, director of the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club, said the rusty patched bumble bee is a critical part of the natural ecosystem.

"It pollinates prairie plants, pollinates garden plants, fruit trees, ornamental plants," Mackey-Taylor explained. "It's important to keep the pollinator services from the rusty patched bumble bee available and are certainly necessary."

The Fish and Wildlife Service is awarding more than $48 million to 19 states for habitat conservation projects, to benefit 80 endangered and at-risk species across the country.

The bee lives on prairie and marsh lands and makes its colonies underground. Mackey-Taylor pointed out the grant money will be used to make sure the areas the bee relies on most will be protected from invasive species, which will allow the things they need to thrive.

"Blooming flowers throughout the spring, summer and fall so that there's a nectar source," Mackey-Taylor noted. "And make sure the bees are protected from sprays, fungicides, herbicides and insecticides."

Pesticide overspray and drift can often be a problem for Iowa farmers trying to manage weeds and pests, which could affect the bee habitat the grant is designed to protect.

As worldwide demand for meat and dairy continues to grow, so does evidence showing animal agriculture, as currently practiced, is harming the environment.

Advocates are making the case for widespread adoption of a vegan diet, avoiding animal products, as better for individual health and the environment. It is estimated between 11% and 20% of all greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide come from animal agriculture and livestock grazing has degraded up to 20% of the world's pastures.

Marco Springmann, research fellow in climate change, food systems and health at University College-London and senior environment and health researcher at Oxford University, said a vegan diet would bring a number of benefits.

"Adoption of a completely plant-based, or vegan, diet has many health, environmental and even cost benefits," Springmann explained. "If more people adopted such a diet, it would result in general benefits for climate change, land use as well as population health."

Maryland is home to more than 160,000 cattle, with a $91 million beef cattle industry and a $185 million dairy industry.

Veganism has attracted more attention in recent years, thanks in part to advancements in lab-grown meat technology; however, it's still not a very popular diet, with surveys indicating fewer than 5% are vegan. The prospect of billions of people deciding to eliminate animal products from their diets seems unlikely. Feeding a vegan world would require growing many more plants than we do now.

Springmann pointed out there is enough cropland to meet the nutritional needs of Earth's population through plants alone.

"At the moment, we feed about a third of all grains to livestock," Springmann emphasized. "Which means that if we wouldn't have so much livestock anymore, we actually would have lots of cropland available to grow other things in addition to not having, for example, all this need for pastures anymore."

He said if we shifted to a healthy plant-based diet, then we would still have a net reduction in global cropland use of about 10%.

Benefits of a global vegan diet include an estimated 3 billion hectares of land freed up for other purposes and a 6 billion-ton reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions annually. It is also estimated more than 2 million additional hectares of tropical rainforest would be preserved each year. Springmann added another benefit is cost.

"If you recompose your diet to something that is not made up of those processed products but is just generally healthy, then we calculated that purely on the cost of ingredients, a plant-based diet might actually be much cheaper," Springmann stressed. "Up to a quarter or even a third in high-income countries."

This story is based on original reporting by Seth Millstein at Sentient.


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This article was produced by Local First Arizona.
Broadcast version by Alex Gonzalez for Arizona News Connection reporting for the Local First Arizona-Resource Rural-Public News Service Collaboration

Solar panels have been on Anna May Cory's mind for years. But she worried the expense of installing them would outweigh the long-term cost savings.

All that changed last year, when Cory found out about thousands of dollars in grants and tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act designed specifically to help rural businesses affordably upgrade their buildings to cut energy costs.

The 27-room Pines Inn and Suites sits a few miles southwest of Arizona's famous Sedona red rocks in the 12,000-person town of Cottonwood. Cory moved to the community in search of a rural atmosphere, warmer temperatures and a friendly, small-town experience, which she now helps to foster.

"What I like is the friendliness, and everyone caring about our town," Cory said.

With 275 days of sun, solar makes sense

Pines Inn and Suites has been certified as a "green" hospitality outpost by the Arizona Hotel & Lodging Association for more than two decades, in part thanks to Cory's improvements like high-efficiency light bulbs, better ventilation and a water bottle refilling station for guests.

The hotel even became an early adopter of electric vehicle charging stations.

"We were way ahead of our time," said Cory, who runs the inn with her son and daughter-in-law.

In a town that sees 275 days of sun per year, solar was the next logical step.

Cory learned about federal assistance to install solar while attending the Green Business Boot Camp facilitated by Local First Arizona, a nonprofit that supports small businesses throughout the state. The seven-week program covers a series of sustainability topics, helping Cory realize she could tap into the federal funding passed by Congress in 2022 to cover the bulk of the costs that were holding her back.

To help other business owners, Local First Arizona created a Green Project Guide that explains tax credits, grants and other funding available for energy and water efficiency projects.

70% savings with help from federal programs

Cory was able to achieve essentially 70% off the installation cost with the help of a $32,000 reimbursement from the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) and $23,000 from the renewable energy Investment Tax Credit, both of which were made possible through the Inflation Reduction Act.

"One day, $32,000 appeared in our checking account, and we were like, 'Whoa it's time to celebrate!'" Cory said. "For us, that was quite impressive."

In addition to tax credits and grant funding, Cory estimates she will save more than $10,000 on energy bills every year.

The project was so successful, she's working on a second REAP grant to finance a second solar installation.

"I'm excited about that because it's really going to bring down our costs," Cory said.

Doing her part to keep Cottonwood 'breathing fresh air'

Cory feels good that her upgrades will contribute to better health for the whole town. As zero-emission sources of energy, solar panels help reduce air pollution.

That fits right in with what Cory loves about Cottonwood as a hometown.

"I love the Verde River," she said. "We can enjoy the river here, and there's a lot of opportunity for hiking and outdoor activity and breathing fresh air."

In addition to the solar panels, the Green Business Boot Camp inspired Cory to find a locally based coffee vendor to reduce the pollution generated by ordering products from far away.

"It's a small thing, but a small thing can become a big thing in terms of sustainability," she said.


This article was produced by Local First Arizona.


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The U.S. Forest Service is spending $8 million to reduce wildfire risk in Montana, part of a larger federal program funded by the Inflation Reduction Act.

The money allocated to Montana is part of the 14-state Collaborative Wildfire Risk Reduction Program and will be used to reduce fire fuels in the Custer Gallatin and Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forests.

Melissa Simpson, northern regional partnership coordinator for the U.S. Forest Service, said the program also seeks to restore habitat for native species and protect the Bozeman watershed.

"Specifically, some of the treatments for the Bozeman project include things like thinning, some commercial timber harvest, pile burning and other activities related to reducing hazardous fuels," Simpson outlined. "Also, really protecting watershed health and forest health."

Regionwide, the program funds 21 fire risk-reduction projects in national forests and mostly within the urban-wildland interface.

Simpson pointed out the projects should increase the overall health of the Custer Gallatin and Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forests, by reducing what's known as "fuel loading," which lessens the chances fires become catastrophic when they do break out.

"(It) provides better access for firefighters to respond if there were a fire in those areas," Simpson explained. "Both of these projects are in municipal watersheds, so providing healthy forests for healthy water is really important."

In one instance, the project seeks to protect the Tenmile municipal watershed, which supplies drinking water to 40,000 people in the greater Helena area.


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