From the Beaufort County Soil and Water Conservation District

 

As a part of Beaufort County for 52 years, the Beaufort Soil and Water Conservation District wants to remind you that each of us has a connection to natural resources. The National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD) is celebrating the 60th year of Stewardship Week April 26-May 3. The 2015 Stewardship Week is themed, “Local Heroes — Your Hardworking Pollinators.”  The district will distribute Stewardship Week bookmarks and activity booklets around the county to promote awareness of the importance of pollinators.

Pollinators play a critical role in our everyday lives, and it is important that we work to protect their habitat. While pollinators may seem like just annoying insects, they are actually a very important part of the web of life upon which we all depend. Pollinators form the underpinning of a healthy and sustainable future for food and the environment, but they have shown disturbing signs of decline in recent years. When pollinators shrink in number, many plants either produce less seed or no seed at all. Most plants depend upon pollinators to reproduce. On planet Earth there are more than 100,000 species of insects, including bees, flies, moths, butterflies and beetles that work hard as pollinators. There are also over 1,000 species of other animals such as birds, reptiles and mammals, including bats that pollinate plants.

Beaufort SWCD is a member of NACD, which oversees the Stewardship Program. The soil stewardship observance was actually started in 1946 by the publishers of “Farm and Ranch Magazine” to set aside one Sunday to remind their congregations of man’s duty to be good stewards of the land. It was only celebrated in a few southern states. It was received so well that additional states asked to be added. The publishers suggested to NACD in 1954 to make it a nationwide observance and to include student education resources. Thus the first Soil and Water Stewardship Week began in 1955.

For more information or materials about Stewardship Week and conservation, contact the Beaufort SWCD at 252-946-4989, Ext. 3. You can visit www.nacdnet.org to learn more about NACD and Stewardship Week.