What is a Conservation District?

No one is absolutely sure who first came up with the idea of conservation districts. In 1934, Hugh Hammond Bennett recommended that district organizations could get landowners and operators involved in conservation projects. At about the same time, a report from the Department of the Interior also suggested such an organization. Wherever the idea came from, it has been essential.

In 1936, the Department of Agriculture drafted a "Standard Act" for organizing soil conservation districts and in 1937, President Roosevelt sent a copy of the document to governors of all states with a letter recommending that they act on it. The Illinois legislature passed the Illinois Soil and Water Conservation Districts Act of July 9, 1937. Local people in Adams County petitioned the State to form a Conservation District and the District was formed according to State law on June 24, 1942.

Today, there are nearly 3000 Districts in every state and in Puerto Rico, The Virgin Islands, Guam and the District of Columbia. These districts cover urban areas with concerns about erosion from construction sites as well as rural areas with concerns about erosion from crop, range and forest lands. Their Boards and staff are active in protecting water quality and doing conservation education with the public.

Citizens who walk into a conservation district office get a sense that they are dealing with an unique beast; an entity that is part local, part state, part federal, part volunteer, part paid. That has sometimes lent to a bit of confusion. But it is also part of the real strength of the district movement. The idea of involving landowners and operators in a unique partnership with the federal and state governments has endured.