Core Criteria for a Conservation Landscape

Maine Certified Conservation Properties

Certifying Your Conservation Landscape

Anyone may use these resources in any area without completing the certification! If you choose to pursue certification, our program will help you implement conservation practices in a systematic way, with guidance and ideas from staff and one-on-one help on your property. Certification is achieved by completing our checklist of conservation practices that have been implemented on your property. Submit checklists to Waldo County SWCD via the contact form or by mail. SWCD staff will then visit your property to review the checklist items with you. You can begin and submit your checklist even if you are not done, as an Aspiring Conservationist. (One visit is complimentary per landowner with additional visits at the standard rate.) There is no pass fail! It is a chance to measure your progress and share ideas and practices with your neighbors, friends and family.

Residents who complete the Conservation Landscape Certification:

· Receive a certificate and document that can support other conservation work, such as working with NRCS or state agencies.

· Can post our sign indicating your property is certified, which is a great way to start conversations with others about your efforts. Signs are free to those who complete their certification.*

· Will be recognized in our Annual Report and at our Annual Awards Banquet.

But it’s likely your own immediate reward will be the chance to watch birds and wildlife inhabiting your land, feeding, and raising young, and seeing beautiful changes in the landscape.

Why certify your landscape?

Biologist Doug Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home and Nature’s Best Hope, proposes a “Homegrown National Park” where we can all help to create the vast landscape of ecosystems needed to keep the water and air clean, keep farms and forests productive, and help birds, insects and wildlife recover from steep declines in recent years.

More than 165 million acres in this country are devoted to neighborhoods, towns, and lands where we live and work. Implementing healthy conservation practices around our homes will create an environment where birds, butterflies and other creatures can shelter, find food, raise young and migrate. For larger properties, the way farm fields, pastures, edges, landscaped areas and woodlands are managed can make a great difference in supporting a connected, healthy ecosystem that ultimately keeps the land resilient and functional.

You can choose the certificate and checklist depending on your property type (or combine these):

• Residential and Small Mixed Use properties

• Woodlands

• Farmland (Checklist coming soon)

• Parks or Conserved Lands (Checklist coming soon)

Additionally, you can just complete the 5 basic criteria, or you can add up points to measure your progress. You can reach the Aspiring Level even if you haven’t met all the criteria! And, you can work your way up to Master Conservationist through the program.

Our certification helps you ensure you’ve covered every aspect of what’s needed to truly implement conservation on your property. Our SWCD landscape certification covers much more than just wildlife habitat, and is one of the only comprehensive certifications available.

resources

If you begin by reading the book Nature’s Best Hope by Doug Tallamy, you’ll have a deep understanding of why and how to create a conservation landscape. Tallamy tells us that creating habitat on our developed lands is vital to turning the tide on the massive decline in all types of animals we are seeing now. See our Recommended Books for other worthwhile reading to get ready to steward your conservation landscape.

Our Conservation Landscape Certification Resource Guide will help you get started.

 *Signs are free while supplies last. Sign purchase is funded by a grant from the Davis Conservation Foundation.