Pennsylvania Game News - March 2010 - 13

outdoor traditions, it is imperative that we as sportsmen and women utilize every tool at our disposal to educate the public about the active role our community plays in the conservation of the environment that we all live in.” One of the issues we can support as sportsmen is the Buffer 100 Campaign that the Pennsylvania Campaign for Cleaner Water has launched. At least 100 feet of healthy buffer along streams is being promoted. This is an amendment to the PA Chapter 102 regulations that are designed to protect our rivers and streams from excessive erosion and sedimentation. Their campaign’s slogan is “Beside every good stream is a good forest.” A healthy buffer is one that contains native trees, shrubs and ground covering plants and is wide enough to filter pollution, hold and absorb flood waters, and create healthy habitat. Buffers enhance stream habitat for fish and other aquatic life. The leaves, sticks and other debris from forested buffers provide food, shelter and habitat, increasing biological productivity from the base of the food chain on up. This added habitat will mean more wildlife, especially birds, turkeys and pheasants. Hunters and anglers can support the regulations by visiting www.pacleanwatercampaign.org to make an individual endorsement. You can also support the Bay with a group of friends and family members. Your sportsman’s club can take the initiative in creating a stream habitat restoration project. On PA’s Fish & Boat Commission website page, check out the habitat page and learn which projects are going on, what you can do and who to contact. Visit www.fish.state.pa.us/habitat.htm. If you own land, you may qualify to participate in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). It is a voluntary land retirement program for environmentally sensitive agricultural land. Farmers and other landowners are provided with a financial package to conserve and enhance their land’s natural resources. MARCH 2010 Ground and surface water is safeguarded, erosion is decreased, and the land is restored for wildlife habitat. Landowners receive technical and financial assistance to complete these projects. Native grasses and tree buffers can be introduced to convert highly erodible cropland, and restore wetlands. If you are a landowner with grazing animals, you can receive additional monetary benefits to construct fences, stabilize crossings and install alternative water supplies. To qualify, you must own idle pasture or cropland that is within 180 feet of a stream, including ponds and wetlands with open water, and the land cannot have more than 30 percent woody plant cover. Contracts require a 10- to 15-year commitment to keep lands out of agriculture production. CREP is considered one of the most cost-efficient and effective programs for reducing pollution in the Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation and CREP and its partners have planted more than 14,000 miles of streamside buffers. The Bay’s streams are presently 58 percent forested, but need to be 70 percent to maintain a healthy watershed. Perhaps you are a sportsman that owns already forested land. More than 12 million acres of Pennsylvania forests are privately owned by some 740,000 citizens, not by federal, state or local governments, nor by corporate timber companies, but by people like you and me. This is the largest population of private forest owners in the country. You forest landowners control the fate of a huge percentage of our forested land, and are free to develop, sell, cut or destroy this precious natural resource. It is pertinent that we employ more of you as healthy forest stewards. Help is available through the For13

http://www.pacleanwatercampaign.org http://www.fish.state.pa.us/habitat.htm

Pennsylvania Game News - March 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - March 2010