Heads up Massachusetts readers. The Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs has grant money available to improve the condition of Narragansett Bay and its major tributaries — the Taunton, Blackstone, Ten Mile, etc. Funds are available for efforts that improve “the communication to the public as well as policy makers measurable results and accomplishments and increasing public involvement and awareness of watershed health.”
Proposals must be submitted on or before 12 September 2007 at 3:00 PM. The agency has a pretty big pot of cash, but require a 50% match from non-federal sources.
I have an email I received that contains all the details. Drop me a note at eric dot eckl at waterwordsthatwork dot com and I’ll forward it to you.
Good luck!
I had the pleasure of delivering the closing plenary presentation at the Wetlands 2007 conference today, hosted by the Association of State Wetland Managers. I used the occasion to make my strongest statements yet about the link between public opinion, nature protection, pollution control — and how everyday citizens are disengaging from the news media that once was their main source of information about these topics and turning their attention to online community forums.
Click here to download my Power Point presentation.
Click here for the bibliography of sources I cited in my remarks.
And now, I’m off to enjoy my Labor Day weekend. See you all in the fall.
Here’s another example of digital word-of-mouth in action: Blog Action Day. Thousands of bloggers have committed to posting about the environment on October 15th. If you have a blog, you can visit their website and commit to joining them. Of course, I blog about the environment every day that I blog, but I signed up anyway.
If you have a blog, please do the same. If you don’t have a blog, now’s a good time to get one!
P.S. — for good measure, check out the button that you push to submit your registration: Make a difference, a word that works! Nice touch, gang.
Some Water Words readers have alerted me that they find it helpful when I post relevant funding opportunities… so here’s a good one and I’ll be posting more in the future. Also note that I have created a category in the righthand column that you can click on to see past notices.
Preserve America Grant Program
Deadline: November 1, 2007
The Fish and Wildlife Service (Disclaimer: A former employer) and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundationare requesting proposals to help foster interpretive, education, and visitor initiatives that incorporate history and historic sites into the National Wildlife Refuge System’s mission. The National Wildlife Refuge System Preserve America Grant program seeks to protect historic sites, integrate history into refuge interpretive and education programs, and build partnerships with communities and organizations interested in supporting refuge programs.
The grant program provides competitive grants of $10,000 to $15,000 each to help fund national wildlife refuge interpretive and education projects focusing on history and historic sites and how they contribute to conservation and understanding of natural
resources. Grant proposals must demonstrate national, state, or local partnerships to qualify.
Eligible applicants are nonprofit tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organizations or organizations that have applied for nonprofit status, including Refuge “Friends” organizations, cooperative and interpretive associations, local historical societies, academic
institutions, or other citizen support organizations interested in assisting a Refuge or group of Refuges and the Refuge System
as a whole. State, county, and local government agencies are not eligible.
To learn more about this opportunity, click here.
Good luck all!
