Natural Areas Association (NAA) is an association of scientists and practitioners focused on the management of ecologically significant natural landscapes with the intent to protect biodiversity for current and future generations. Natural Areas News is your trusted resource for current events, reliable science, conservation success, emerging challenges, best practices, and achievements of those who work daily to preserve natural areas.

More than a dozen Indigenous communities welcomed over 540 American bison back to ancestral grazing lands across the nation as part of a multi-state, Indigenous-led initiative by the InterTribal Buffalo Council (ITBC), Tanka Fund and partner The Nature Conservancy (TNC). The initiative’s goal is to restore this keystone species, which plays a crucial role in spiritual and cultural revitalization, ecological restoration and conservation, food sovereignty, health and economic development for Indigenous Peoples.

The annual Biodiversity Highlights, hosted at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, will begin Wednesday, February 5, 2025. These presentations will highlight new biodiversity information that is relevant to natural resource professionals working to conserve, manage and better understand biodiversity in Minnesota. View the agendas:

February 5, 2025 | 12:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. CT
February 11, 2025 | 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. CT
February 25, 2025 | 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. CT

Nearly one year after the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation became the first federally recognized Native American nation in Illinois, the state will transfer ownership of Shabbona Lake State Park to the Nation. The park is situated on land that was illegally seized and auctioned off by the United States government in the 1800s, and officials say they are rectifying an historic wrong with this transfer.

Ecologists are wielding mycorrhizal fungi as nature-based tools for conservation. Done correctly, they say, inoculation with these fungi can help to revive endangered plants or ecosystems with less reliance on fertilizers and pesticides than other approaches. But there’s nuance: When introduced where they’re not welcome, mycorrhizal fungi can bring unexpected consequences that may take years to recover from.