Distinguished Conservation Service Award

What replaced the Hornaday Awards

The William T. Hornaday Awards were discontinued in 2020, and this program replaced them. It asks for two conservation projects rather than the three or four the Hornaday awards did.

What it asks of a Scout

1. Be a First Class Scout.
2. Earn five merit badges: Environmental Science, Fish and Wildlife Management, Forestry, Soil and Water Conservation, and Sustainability.
3. Earn two more from: Bird Study, Energy, Fishing, Fly-Fishing, Gardening, Geology, Insect Study, Landscape Architecture, Mammal Study, Nature, Nuclear Science, Oceanography, Plant Science, Pulp and Paper, Reptile and Amphibian Study, or Weather.
4. Plan, lead and carry out two conservation projects, in two different categories, with long-term benefit to the environment.
5. Pass a board of review held by the council's conservation committee.

The projects are the heart of it

The categories are air and water pollution control, energy conservation, fish and wildlife management, forestry and range management, hazardous materials disposal and management, invasive species control, pollinator management, resource recovery, and soil and water conservation.

• Each project is pre-approved by your unit leader, your adviser and the council conservation committee.
• One may be your Eagle Scout project, if it qualifies.
• Each is documented in the project workbook, which is required. The program page links it, the application and an executive summary template.
• The awards are individual: two people cannot claim the same project, though each may carry out a different part of a larger effort. The program page is blunt about size: a weekend of collecting cans or a one-off tree planting does not qualify; a reforestation project planned with a professional forester might.

Venturers and Sea Scouts

The same award has a different list for Venturers and Sea Scouts: twelve requirements of projects, presentations, field study and teaching, with no merit badges. It is in the requirements document.

What this page is

The Distinguished Conservation Service Award, drawn so the adviser and the approvals come before the projects, and the board of review is the council conservation committee's. It is not a copy of the requirements: each step is a short label with a link to the official requirements, which are what actually governs.