While driving the roads of Maine recently, I saw three rough but clear handmade signs. The one in Belgrade Lakes read “turtle[s],” the one in Mount Vernon said “deer active here,” and the last in Sullivan stated “ducklings crossing.” All three signs were in the service of conservation.

The signs were meant as warnings to motorists. The messages were clear: take care to protect wildlife and to prevent costly car repairs (or worse). It probably didn’t take long to produce and post those signs, thus illustrating how easy it is to help conserve natural resources.

Some conservationists spend years in school learning how complex conservation issues can be. Often their specialized knowledge is necessary for the heavy lifting in conservation work.  But anyone with any lived experiences in nature can help. Some people pull over to help a turtle cross a road (remember to do so safely and to help it to the side it was plodding toward). It takes minutes.

A lot of conservation work is common sense fueled by passion and desire.

If you have hours to spare, you can attend training sessions to learn how to spot invasive aquatic species or learn how to inspect boats, trailers, and vehicles. Courtesy Boat Inspectors volunteer or get paid to prevent invasive aquatic plants and animals from spreading in our lakes. They can work one day a week or more. One guy with a boat spends hours writing newspaper columns about conservation.

7 Lakes Alliance in Belgrade Lakes spent a couple of days in D.C. recently. They met with Susan Collins’ staff in an effort to bring millions of dollars of grant money to the Belgrades to fight algal blooms. You see, in mere minutes, hours, or days you can become a conservationist.

For an easy four weeks of conservation work, you can try No Mow May (or Mow Less May). It’s what it sounds like: eschewing the mower for four weeks to allow flowering plants to bloom. Flowers provide nectar and pollen for pollinators to feed on.

In early spring floral resources are often limited. Moreover, bees, key contributors to healthy ecosystems, have been in decline. Even the lowly and sometimes derided dandelion can help increase bee populations and the numbers of other insects.

Many of the conservationists I’ve worked with live out of state. They come to the Belgrade Lakes for days, weeks or months “upta camp.” While here, they split their time between family and volunteering for their local lake associations. Admiring their months of service as I do, I’ve changed my thinking about out-of-staters.

But why stop at mere months? The Maine Department of Environmental Protection partners with 7 Lakes Alliance and other experts in conservation. Together, working with lake associations, they create science-based, five- and 10-year watershed plans. There’s so much good work to be done.

My favorite conservation story is about two young teen girls in a canoe. Once every summer they paddled around Little North Pond in the Belgrade Lakes. Using a long-handled fishing net, they’d scoop up the bottles and cans littering the pond bottom.

It isn’t easy scooping litter with a blunt shaped fishing net from a tippy canoe. The girls’ net would stir up silt, making it hard to see. But they persisted, sometimes filling two garbage bags. Like many acts of conservation, the canoe girls had fun, their friendship grew, and they bonded while serving their community and its ecosystem. Time well spent.

Litter is a form of neglect. Fighting neglect (picking up litter) is one of the countless easy things we all can do to conserve natural resources. Like the canoe girls, I’ve learned it’s easy to spot and pick up floating litter on Maine’s lakes and in the ocean.

It takes a minute or two to write and mail a check to support your local lake association or conservation organization. In less than an hour, you can research candidates’ stances on environmental protection and vote for the one most committed to conservation. Two girls in a boat cleaned up a whole pond in a few hours.

At a recent gathering at the 7 Lakes Alliance, the president and CEO alluded to the many small challenges facing conservationists. Too many small challenges create big challenges. To prevent this “death by a thousand cuts” he said, we need to turn everybody into Band-Aids. Please join us in the Band-Aid Brigade.

We are grateful for any amount of time you can spend conserving natural resources. Isn’t it about time?