Yes, it's still three months until Earth Day 2008, on April 22nd. So there's lots of time to take on my Earth Day challenge and complete it before Earth Day itself rolls around.What's behind this: I've long been interested in the National Wildlife Federation's Backyard Habitat program. I've included wildlife-friendly features as I've worked on improving different parts of my yard, including native plants, a birdbath, nesting boxes, rock and brush piles, and a runoff garden. While I meet the minimum qualifications now, there are a couple more projects I want to complete before I apply for certification and buy one of the nifty metal yard signs that says "Certified Wildlife Habitat." My goal is to be done with my projects, register, and have the yard sign by Earth Day this year.
The challenge: How many Reading Dirt readers will have gardens (or other spots of land that you can influence, like workplace or church grounds, etc.) that qualify as a backyard habitat (whether you choose to officially register or not) by Earth Day 2008? If you have native plants, feeding stations, water features, and shrubs or other cover, you might already qualify.
Here's what to do:
- Go to the Garden for Wildlife page and look over the information.
- Read about the Basic Elements for getting started.
- To find out if you meet the minimum requirements, go to the Certification page, and download the printable PDF application.
- If you want, you can keep an online scrapbook of your progress.
- When your yard (or other spot of land that you can influence) qualifies, post a comment here. You might want to bookmark this post for later reference.
1 comment:
I know the comment is a little late coming. I checked out the requirements on the certificate application and I found that I'm one "place for cover" away from certifiable. I mean, from being certified. No, wait, I meant that too. Anyway, because of your post, I checked it out and will likely send in the application soon.
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