Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever Ohio State Coordinator Cody Grasser will be the keynote speaker during the Champaign Land Preservation Annual Meeting and Silent Auction on Tuesday, July 19 at the Urbana Melvin Miller City Park bandstand stage area at 7 p.m. Please bring lawn chairs for this free event that is open to the public.
Grasser grew up in Missouri where he developed a passion for the outdoors at an early age which later morphed into a desire for a career in natural resources conservation.
His education took him to Denison University in Ohio. Following college, Grasser served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon where he worked in sustainable agriculture and environmental education.
Upon returning to American soil, he completed wildlife research and habitat management work for the Missouri Department of Conservation, Ohio Division of Wildlife and Ohio State University. He joined Pheasants Forever as a Farm Bill biologist in January 2014 and became a senior Farm Bill biologist for Ohio in 2017.
The Champaign Land Preservation will also have a silent auction during this event. All proceeds from the silent auction will go toward the Champaign Land Preservation’s operating costs.
The Champaign Land Preservation (CLP) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) conservation organization. It is a land trust that works to preserve farm land, open space, and wildlife habitat. CLP sponsors programs about land preservation, conservation, local foods, climate change, and natural history. CLP is one of over 1,300 land trusts in the United States.
A land trust is organized to help achieve individual and community land use and land preservation goals.
CLP works with landowners to create easement language that protects the conservation values of the owner’s property. Conservation values may include productive agricultural land, stream corridors, or woodlands. Once these easements are recorded, they remain in place from owner to owner and protect the conservation values of the property in perpetuity. Owners continue to own their land. The owners can use their land, sell it, or pass it on to their heirs, subject to the easement.
The Champaign Land Preservation board will be donating several silent auction items to help raise funds for their organization. For more information about the Champaign Land Preservation, please visit www.champaignlandpreservation.org.
