By TIM THORNBERRY
Kentucky Correspondent

FRANKFORT, Ky. — In Kentucky, Jane Eller has worked most of her life to teach people about the environment, what it means to each of us and what we can do to preserve it.

Eller is the executive director of Kentucky Environmental Education Council, an agency located in the state’s Education Cabinet. She welcomes recent interest in taking care of the environment, but sees the need for more attention than Earth Day has provided in its 37-year history.

“This Earth Day has provided a little hope to those of us who make a job of trying to help people take better care of our natural resources,” she said.

“For a variety of reasons, including global climate change, the energy problem and the continuing loss of farmland, people seemed to take a little more notice of Earth Day this year than in years past. The big question, of course, is will this year be like the 36 or so before it, in which our interest in things natural wanes as our daily lives recede from this few days of celebrating what Earth does for us all?”

She attributes these to immediate concerns in our daily lives, lack of required environmental education in schools and that people “perceive environmental problems as beyond their ability to address.

“Environmental problems are complex and, since they are low on the perceived hierarchy of needs, people (and society in general) do not spend resources, either in time, money or mental energy, to learn how they can make small changes in their everyday lives to help preserve valuable resources,” she said.

“Yet, since we are on a crash course between six billion people and a finite planet, learn and act they must.”

Farming fits in
Farmers have long been caretakers of the land.

It is the canvas upon which they make their living and feed a nation, but with the expansion of society much of the country’s farmland has been used for housing, business and industry.

Many programs have been created over the last few years to help protect and conserve these farmlands for generations to come.
Organizations such as the American Farmland Trust and the National Assoc. of Conservation Districts have worked to preserve farmland across the nation.

From a local perspective, the Kentucky Department of Agriculture’s Mini-Bulk Recycling Program saw its most successful year in 2006. The program helps keep large tanks and plastic crop-protecting drums in circulation and out of the state’s landfills.

“I want to applaud our folks in the field who are helping keep Kentucky’s countryside beautiful through our Mini-Bulk Recycling, Rinse and Return and Farm Chemical Collection programs,” said Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer.

“Farmers are some of the best friends of the environment, because that’s how they make their living. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

University of Kentucky Extension Agent Tommy Yankey said the country’s farmers have always taken care of the land, and commemorated them during this year’s Earth Day celebration.

“I have always found farm families to be the ultimate caretakers of the Earth, as they fully realize their livelihood is derived from the land on which they live and work,” said Yankey. “If they fail to practice conservation, productivity of their land decreases along with their ability to provide for their families. It’s just that simple.

“Farmers have always strived to be good stewards of the land. I celebrate the American Farmer on Earth Day.”

For nearly 40 years, Earth Day has existed and, while much still has to be done, those who live off the land and those who wish to protect it are creating more of an awareness of how important it really is.

“Without clean water and adequate farmland, where will the grocery stores get the food they sell to us?” questioned Eller. “In a modern technological and cash-based society, we are so separated from those natural miracles that actually provide our everyday needs, that we no longer even recognize that our very lives, and those of our families, depend on them.”