To ensure a bright future for our sporting traditions, hunters and anglers must actively support energy development approaches that avoid and minimize impacts to the nation’s fish and wildlife resources. The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership is committed to working with diverse stakeholders to achieve that outcome.
American’s modern lifestyles are prompting broad investments in a diverse array of domestic energy sources. Power generation to develop energy storage for data centers and other uses comes from a mix of energy development—including carbon-based, renewable, and nuclear energy—and critical minerals production—mining and processing.
This webpage is a resource that compiles TRCP’s work relevant to energy development and critical minerals production, and highlights opportunities for that development to avoid and minimize impacts to hunter and angler access and opportunity. Read more below.
While TRCP recognizes the United States must develop a diversity of energy sources to meet our energy needs and reduce carbon emissions, many of these require vast amounts of land, exclusionary fencing, and temporary or permanent disturbance that can impact wildlife directly, as well as sensitive habitats and working agricultural lands. Certain critical minerals that are essential for energy storage and renewable technology are sometimes found in geological formations underneath vital natural habitats. Responsible siting policies must be in place that facilitate expanded deployment of diverse energy resources, while also guaranteeing quality places to hunt and fish.
The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and 21 other hunting, fishing, and conservation organizations published the Energy Development & Land Use: Fish & Wildlife Platform in 2024.
The platform highlights the physical land requirements of different types of electric power generation and offers a unified perspective to policymakers to consider how to best meet our 21st century electric generation and transmission needs, while conserving wildlife habitat that supports our nation’s rich hunting and fishing culture.
While there are several factors to consider when it comes to energy development, the report is focused on one key factor—land occupancy—and highlights that there is the potential for dramatically different consequences for fish and wildlife habitats depending on the type of energy generation and where and how those generating facilities are sited on the landscape.
Types of electric power generation considered in the report are nuclear, natural gas, geothermal, rooftop solar, coal, utility-scale solar, hydropower, and utility-scale wind power, as well as detailing the impacts of transmission of electricity from where it is generated to where it is consumed.
American Wildlife Conservation Partners—comprised of the nation’s top 52 sporting-conservation organizations that represent America’s hunter-conservationists, professional wildlife and natural resource managers, outdoor recreation users, conservation educators, and wildlife scientists—released Wildlife for the 21st Century, Volume VII (W-21) in 2024.
This comprehensive publication identifies solutions to conserve wildlife and their habitats across the nation, bolstering public access, and protecting our outdoor traditions. The recommendations in W-21 will aid policymakers in making decisions on sporting-conservation issues and practices that are vital to current and future generations of sportsmen and sportswomen and other conservationists.
One primary pillar of focus is energy development—including carbon-based, renewable, and nuclear energy—particularly working to ensure wildlife and habitat goals are integrated into planning, development, and operations of all energy sources and impacts are mitigated.
Developed by Trout Unlimited, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, The Nature Conservancy, National Wildlife Federation, and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, the Critical Minerals: A Hunting and Fishing Perspective report outlines ways that critical minerals can be responsibly developed while safeguarding wildlife, lands, waters, and outdoor recreation.
The report acknowledges the important role that critical minerals—such as cobalt, nickel, and lithium—play in advancing innovative technologies and achieving energy abundance and carbon emissions reduction goals. The report also urges policymakers, industry leaders, conservationists, and local communities to work together to deploy mineral mining solutions that minimize impacts to landscapes that are important to hunters and anglers.
Read the Full ReportUtility-scale solar development is rapidly progressing across the western United States on both private and public lands. If improperly sited, utility-scale solar development can be detrimental to big game—including mule deer, elk, and pronghorn, that must travel great distances between seasonal ranges—due to the large footprint and impenetrable safety fencing required for these projects.
The TRCP developed guidelines, released in 2024, to summarize the emerging science to inform the siting of solar energy facilities in a manner that avoids, minimizes, and mitigates impacts to big game and their habitats. These guidelines are intended to supplement state-specific siting guidelines that currently exist or are under development and to provide state wildlife agencies, as well as industry, non-governmental organizations, and hunters and anglers who engage in solar development projects with additional science-based recommendations specifically for western big game species. By deliberately siting solar projects away from crucial migration corridors and winter ranges, our sporting traditions can be maintained and responsible energy development can occur.
Read the Full ReportAs America’s demand for energy development and critical minerals continues to grow, so too does our commitment to conserve the nation’s most important special places.
The Rocky Mountain Front in Montana and the Wyoming Range in Wyoming are two examples of special places where local communities and diverse stakeholders cooperated to conserve the wild qualities that are of such great importance they outweigh the potential for energy development. There are additional special places, such as the Ruby Mountains of Nevada and the Boundary Waters of Minnesota, where intact habitats and open spaces are the best and highest value. The TRCP is committed to the conservation of these prized landscapes.
The TRCP is proud to work with state wildlife agencies across America to help develop scientifically driven recommendations to address energy development and wildlife needs. Learn more about these agencies and their energy development focuses.
An overview of the budget reconciliation bill and its implications for public lands, access, and conservation.
An overview of the budget reconciliation process and its implications for public lands, access, and conservation.
On March 25, 2025, TRCP joined conservation leaders and policymakers for a crucial briefing on the most pressing challenges in wildlife conservation and outdoor access
TRCP has partnered with Afuera Coffee Co. to further our commitment to conservation. $4 from each bag is donated to the TRCP, to help continue our efforts of safeguarding critical habitats, productive hunting grounds, and favorite fishing holes for future generations.
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