With the powerful essay by Carolyn Baldwin posted below, UNH Cooperative Extension launches NH Outside, a weekly column written primarily by UNH natural resources volunteers.

NH Outside aims to connect readers to New Hampshire’s wild and cultivated outdoor environments by motivating folks to get outside more often, to learn more about the topics we write about, and to become closer observers of the natural world.

UNH Extension supports more than 1,300 trained natural resources volunteers: Master Gardeners, Community Tree Stewards, Wildlife Coverts Cooperators, Lay Lakes Monitors, and Marine Docents. These folks come to our programs motivated by enthusiasm for sharing what they know and love about New Hampshire’s natural environment. In exchange for their training and support, they agree to volunteer time in a wide variety of local and statewide educational projects.

We've recruited, and will keep recruiting, a few natural resources volunteers who like to write, offering them support for improving their writing skills and an opportunity to see their words in print. Our own agricultural resources, forestry & wildlife, and water resources staff will contribute occasionally to NH Outside, as well as review technical content of the volunteers’ columns as needed.

We’ll offer the weekly columns to newspapers and newsletters statewide, so look for them in your local newspaper. We’ll also publish them in the new NH Outside section of our Web site, so you can read them here every week.