This week, federal and state agency representatives, conservation groups, and business stakeholders convened in Washington, DC, for a summit on Conservation without Conflict, a collaborative approach and a coalition of a wide array of groups invested in keeping working lands working and conserving at-risk and threatened and endangered species.
Groups shared lessons learned and success stories from their respective states and brainstormed ways that landowners, government, conservation organizations and industry can use science-based proactive conservation efforts to conserve wildlife. Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation’s (CSF) John Culclasure and Taylor Schmitz participated at the meeting.
On March 14, Members of Congress from the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus (CSC) and Congressional Caucus on Working Forests joined together to continue discussing ideas to collaborative with conservation partners on wildlife and forest conservation policy and public education.
Other panelists from the conservation community included Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF) President Jeff Crane, National Wildlife Federation President/CEO Collin O’Mara, Resource Management Service President/CEO Craig Blair, and moderator Wendi Weber, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Northeast Regional Director.
Focusing on conservation approaches that work for the nation as a whole, the panel discussed benefits of the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act, legislation that aims to provide $1.3 billion in additional funding to state fish and wildlife agencies to address issues identified in their respective State Wildlife Action Plans.
This week’s Summit provided a forum and opportunity to highlight the important role private landowners play in wildlife conservation and to think creatively about incentive-based and flexible approaches to recovering listed species and preventing species listings. It also underscored that conserving wildlife and keeping working lands working can be achieved through collaborative conservation.
Left to Right: Collin O’Mara, Craig Blair, Rep. Sandord Bishop (GA), Rep. Bruce Westerman (AR), Wendi Weber, and Jeff Crane.
Studies conducted at both the state and federal level have found that the number of hunters and trappers have been on a generally declining trend over the past several decades. To increase recruitment, retention, and reactivation (R3) of hunters and trappers, which initiative do you think would have the greatest impact?
