After more than two years of negotiating and over a year of extending the 2008 Farm Bill, on February 7 the President signed into law a new Farm Bill, according to the Wildlife Management Institute. Led by Agriculture Committee Chairs Senator Debbie Stabenow and Congressman Frank Lucas, and Ranking Members Senator Thad Cochran and Congressman Collin Peterson, the four principal negotiators of the 2014 Farm Bill, the new law is largely seen as a victory for conservation.

Five oil and gas companies are voluntarily enrolling nearly 1.5 million acres of land under an innovative plan to conserve the lesser prairie-chicken. This represents the first enrollment in the Lesser Prairie-Chicken Range-wide Conservation Plan (RWP), developed by the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA) and state wildlife agencies in Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.

The Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GPLCC) is using focus groups of private landowners to identify ways to enhance conservation of playas in Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado Nebraska and New Mexico. The GPLCC hopes that by engaging private landowners in discussions about their views of current playa conservation programs, they can make the programs more attractive and effective.

Conservation Briefs is a compilation of short news stories of interest to Outdoor News Bulletin readers. The stories cover a number of issues that have developed in the past month or provide updates on issues that were featured in previous ONB editions. Each story includes links to online resources for more details on each topic.

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Everything that goes into the term "conservation" within the specific context of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is becoming more and more abstract to the general public.

For 50 years, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) has been a one of the most effective tools for federal and state natural resource agencies to conserve valuable habitat and provide outdoor recreation opportunities. But the program has rarely been funded at the full $900 million that it is supposed to receive and detractors argue that the program is no longer a good use of federal funds.

A workshop at the upcoming 79^th North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference will bring together new and existing partners in urban wildlife conservation. Titled "Wildlife Conservation in Cities and Suburbs: Western Approaches," the session will take place from 8:30 am to noon on Tuesday, March 11^th at the Sheraton Downtown in Denver, Colorado.

During the spring and summer, the brightly colored Golden-winged Warbler (Vermivora chrysoptera) inhabits forested landscapes in the Appalachian Mountains, the Great Lakes region, and adjacent southern Canada. Golden-winged warblers breed in forests comprised of a mix of young and more mature stands, old fields, shrubby wetlands, and disturbed areas where forests are regenerating, such as along powerline rights-of-way and small forest openings.