Forest
Stewardship News Release
October
6 , 2006- For Immediate Release
Contact: Allyson
Muth , Phone: 814-865-3208 E-mail:
New Book Helps You Shape Your Backyard Environment
Would you like to see more natural beauty – and less manicured lawn – surrounding your home? A new book, The Woods in Your Backyard: Learning to Create and Enhance Natural Areas Around Your Home, NRAES-184 ($18.00 plus S&H/sales tax; 138 pp; September, 2006), will be an essential tool to help you shape and rebuild your backyard environment. This 138-page combined book and workbook was written specifically for people who live on one to ten acres of land that is forested or that has natural unmowed areas, and for those who want to turn a mowed area into a natural one. Since assistance from public managers is not available in most states to people in this situation, this new book will be an especially important resource.
In the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast region, about two-thirds of forest landowners own ten or fewer acres. The Woods in Your Backyard: Learning to Create and Enhance Natural Areas Around Your Home, NRAES-184, promotes the stewardship of small parcels of land for personal enjoyment of the owners and improved environmental quality for society. Improving water and air quality; enhancing wildlife habitats and overall health of natural areas; and spending less time mowing the lawn and more time enjoying outdoor activities are just some of the benefits to be gained by learning how to manage and shape your backyard parcel of land. By reading this new resource and completing the suggested activities, you will be well equipped to succeed with your land management goals.
The 138-page, coil-bound book is divided into five sections, each including a series of lessons, with corresponding activities in the workbook section. Enhanced by 91 color photos, eight tables, three case studies, worksheets, and much more, the text guides you through a series of steps that can result in an enriched and well-managed outdoor environment. Topics include mapping the land; assessing the family’s interests in the land; inventorying the property; learning the basics of tree identification, forestry, and wildlife habitat management; understanding how your land relates to the land around you; ecological principles of forestry, succession, water resources, natural areas, and wildlife; assessing the property’s water resources, recreational possibilities, and aesthetic appeal, and ways to improve each; choosing a few land-management projects to meet personal goals; and setting a timetable and marking progress.
Finally, by explaining basic principles and procedures for a variety of land-management techniques, this book will help you understand why letting nature take its course may not be the best approach to meeting your goals. You will learn how your intervention can help create a healthy, environmentally-friendly backyard living area you and your family can enjoy for years to come.
The Woods in Your Backyard: Learning to Create and Enhance Natural Areas Around Your Home was published by NRAES, the Natural Resource, Agriculture, and Engineering Service. It was written by Jonathan Kays, Regional Extension Specialist – Natural Resources, Maryland Cooperative Extension; Joy Drohan, freelance environmental science writer/editor; Adam Downing, Extension Agent – Forestry and Natural Resources, Virginia Cooperative Extension; and Jim Finley, State Extension Forester, The Pennsylvania State University.
The Woods in Your Backyard: Learning to Create and Enhance Natural Areas Around Your Home, NRAES-184, costs $18.00 plus $4.25 S&H (within the continental U.S.) Make checks payable to NRAES; all major credit cards accepted. Contact NRAES for other S&H rates and possible quantity discounts: NRAES, Cooperative Extension, PO Box 4557, Ithaca, NY 14852-4557; phone (607) 255-7654; email nraes@cornell.edu; website: http://www.nraes.org.
The Pennsylvania Forest Stewardship Program provides publications on a variety of topics related to woodland management for private landowners. For a list of free publications, call 1-800-235-WISE (toll-free), send e-mail to , or write to: Forest Stewardship Program, Forest Resources Extension, The Pennsylvania State University, 320 Forest Resources Building, University Park, PA 16802. The Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry and USDA Forest Service, in partnership with the Penn State's Forest Resources Extension, sponsor the Forest Stewardship Program in Pennsylvania.
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