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The organization’s Board of Directors has acquired top talent from REI and Bass Pro Shops and welcomes back leaders of Orvis and Pheasants Forever
The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership is honored to announce the newest additions to its Board of Directors: Jerry Stritzke, president and CEO of REI; Megan Morris, foundation and philanthropy advisor for Bass Pro Shops; Dave Perkins, vice chairman of the Orvis Company; Howard Vincent, president and CEO of Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever; Mike Nussman, president and CEO of the American Sportfishing Association; and Alston Watt, executive director of the Williams Family Foundation of Georgia.
“This new slate of Board members makes the TRCP a stronger organization,” says Whit Fosburgh, TRCP’s president and CEO. “They include some of the nation’s most prominent names in conservation, philanthropy, and the hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation industries. Their willingness to serve—or in some cases, serve again—affirms the integrity of TRCP’s bipartisan and science-based approach to safeguarding America’s conservation legacy.”
Stritzke and Morris represent leading outdoor retail brands with impeccable conservation values, while Watt brings experience with non-profit management, fundraising, and philanthropy. Perkins, Vincent, and Nussman are returning to the Board after previously serving full terms.
Four members also concluded their time with the Board in December: John Doerr, previously CEO of Pure Fishing; Mike Fitzgerald, co-owner and president of Frontiers Travel; Jay McAninch, the recently retired president and CEO of the Archery Trade Association; and George Thornton, the recently retired CEO of the National Wild Turkey Federation.
Rod Nelson of Houston, Texas, a former vice president for government and community relations for Schlumberger Limited, was elected as Board chair in December. He replaces Weldon Baird of Atlanta, Georgia, who served as chair for three years.
See the full roster of the TRCP Board of Directors here.
Bios for our newest Board members are below.
Jerry Stritzke joined REI as president and CEO in 2013. Under his leadership, REI launched its extremely successful #OptOutside campaign and reinvested nearly 70 percent of its profits back into the outdoor community in 2017 through co-op members, employees, and nonprofit partners. Stritzke grew up in Oklahoma and enjoys bow hunting, fly fishing, hiking, biking, and cross-country skiing.
Megan Morris is the foundation and philanthropy advisor for Bass Pro Shops, following in her father Johnny Morris’s footsteps as an advocate for local and national efforts to conserve fish and wildlife habitat, connect kids and families to the outdoors, and safeguard hunting and fishing traditions. Morris graduated summa cum laude from the University of Colorado and earned her Master’s in public administration with a concentration in non-profit management from the University of Washington, Seattle.
Dave Perkins joined Orvis in 1979 and is now the vice chairman of retail and sporting traditions, overseeing Orvis retail operations and the company’s core sporting traditions businesses. An avid fly fisherman and wing shooter, Perkins travels extensively to pursue these interests.
Howard Vincent has been with Pheasants Forever for 30 of the organization’s 34 years. In 2000, he was appointed CEO after previously serving as senior vice president and chief financial officer. In that time, it has grown from a $1M to $89M organization, while maintaining 90 percent mission efficiency. He and his wife Wendy have been married for more than 37 years and live in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, where he enjoys chasing the wily ringneck with his two sons, Marco and Ian.
Mike Nussman is the president and CEO of the American Sportfishing Association, having served previously on the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee for 9 years. At ASA, Nussman has been a driving force behind numerous pieces of legislation and policy directives to minimize access restrictions, promote clean water, and restore fish populations. He has helped to grow the International Convention of Allied Sportfishing Trades (ICAST) Show and launched KeepAmericaFishing™, the industry’s angler advocacy initiative.
Alston Watt is the executive director of the Williams Family Foundation of Georgia. She previously worked for CARE in Haiti and Bangladesh—administering programs in microcredit, health, and water— and the North Luangwa Conservation Project in Zambia. Watt grew up hunting with her brothers, cousins, and uncle. She has two sons with husband Philip, and their family is never happier than when they are fishing, hunting, and hiking.
Top photo by Dave Nomsen.
Sportsmen applaud proposed enhancements to a popular Farm Bill program that opens public hunting and fishing access on private lands and attracts outdoor recreation spending to many rural communities
Today, Senators Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) introduced new legislation to reauthorize and expand the popular Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program—the U.S. Department of Agriculture program that incentivizes landowners to open their property for public hunting and fishing access. The Voluntary Public Access Improvement Act of 2017 received praise from 32 sportsmen’s groups that want to see this valuable federal program continued in the 2018 Farm Bill.
“Nothing beats spending time outdoors hunting, fishing, backpacking—it’s the Montana way of life,” says Sen. Daines. “The Voluntary Public Access Improvement Act will strengthen Montana’s outdoor recreation economy and open up more space for families and sportsmen to enjoy local wildlife in Montana and across the country.”
“This program has rewarded Colorado’s farmers and ranchers for providing new opportunities for the next generation of sportsmen and women and improving wildlife habitat across our state,” says Sen. Bennet. “As we work on the next Farm Bill, we’ll continue to prioritize funding for this successful program.”
VPA-HIP is the only federal program aimed at enhancing access and opportunity on privately owned farms, ranches, and forest lands. The program grants money to states and tribes to support landowners who enroll in the program. Since its reauthorization in the 2014 Farm Bill, wildlife agencies across 29 states and tribal lands have received $40 million to expand public access and enhance wildlife habitat on more than 2.5 million acres.
“Loss of access is one of the top concerns for American sportsmen and women, especially considering the recent decline in hunter numbers,” says Whit Fosburgh, president and CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “The Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program has been a signature issue of ours since the TRCP was founded, and we have worked to see it introduced, implemented, and expanded over the past two Farm Bills. Given its popularity among landowners and sportsmen, we are thrilled that this bipartisan legislation now seeks to provide more funding to enhance the program and keep up with demand.”
“When you combine the Farm Bill programs that help enhance habitat, soil health, and water quality with a stronger, more effective vehicle for opening sportsmen’s access in states that are predominantly private land, it creates a ripple effect in our rural economies,” says Howard Vincent, president and CEO of Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever. “Landowners and sportsmen see a benefit, but more access to healthier fish and wildlife habitat also drives outdoor recreation spending across small communities, from gas stations and diners to motels and sporting goods stores.”
This bipartisan bill supports one of the “Sportsmen’s Priorities for Conservation and Access in the 2018 Farm Bill” agreed upon by the TRCP’s Agriculture and Wildlife Working Group—a coalition of 24 diverse sportsmen’s groups working to enhance conservation in the next Farm Bill.
Read all of the AWWG’s recommendations for the 2018 Farm Bill here.
Learn more about the TRCP’s agriculture and private lands work here.
In the last decade, more and more Farm Bill dollars have been invested to enhance habitat and watersheds through creative partnerships on landscape-scale projects, and TRCP partners are some of the most prolific collaborators
With approximately $5 billion a year in conservation funding to invest across nearly 70 percent of our country’s land mass, conservation programs in the Farm Bill affect all of us who hunt and fish on or near private lands. Many of these initiatives help landowners improve hunting and fishing conditions acre by acre and problem by problem, from boosting wildlife habitat to overhauling water quality and soil health.
The current Farm Bill is set to expire in September 2018, and our community has recommendations for ways to tactically improve the conservation section of this massive legislation. Some have to do with supporting a recent trend: Increasingly, the unprecedented restoration of iconic watersheds and ecosystems is being achieved collaboratively among conservation groups, government agencies, private landowners, and even universities and private companies.
These partnerships are changing the face of conservation and growing a restoration economy that can benefit not only farmers and sportsmen but entire communities. Notable examples are in places with longstanding conservation challenges, like the Chesapeake Bay, Colorado River, Great Lakes, Everglades, Mississippi River Basin, Prairie Pothole Region, Puget Sound, and the longleaf pines of the Southeast. Millions of people live in these watersheds, and they offer significant opportunities to hunt and fish.
We’re especially proud to have many of the partners in our 24-member Agriculture and Wildlife Working Group at the helm of these locally led efforts, which look very different from place to place.
In the Driftless Area of lower Wisconsin, for example, Trout Unlimited is helping landowners restore streams a dozen miles at a time on farmland to improve overall water quality downstream—this has resulted in a billion-dollar economic boost to the region. To similarly reduce nutrient runoff into waterways, the Nature Conservancy has partnered with agribusinesses to sell conservation to farmers in the Great Lakes region. Meanwhile, local land trusts in Central Florida work with ranchers to protect the headwaters of the Everglades from overuse by cattle and improve water flows downstream. Joining forces at a local level is making a big difference for these watersheds.
These landscapes are literally changing with rapid improvements for wildlife, water, and the climate. Wildlife Mississippi has helped restore and permanently protect more than 700,000 acres of forest and wetland habitat, benefiting local communities, waterfowl, and threatened species, such as the Louisiana black bear. Ducks Unlimited works with rice growers to create long-term benefits for waterfowl and wetland health while improving working lands. And the National Wildlife Federation is working with ranchers to create mesic habitat, such as beaver ponds, to restore scarce water reserves and create vital habitat for wildlife.
For perspective, many of these kinds of strategic partnerships, which create more valuable conservation outcomes, have only come together in the past decade or so. As a conservation community, we are just learning how to create a larger restoration economy by working in concert to chip away at discrete problems. There’s a new Farm Bill every five years, and over the past couple of iterations we have moved from random acts of conservation to strategic and well-prioritized efforts for the benefit of entire communities—from those of us who like to hunt and fish to those who just happen to live downstream.
This is something we can only achieve by working together. Since the 2014 Farm Bill, hundreds of new partnerships have formed within iconic landscapes and watersheds, and there are some positive ways that this kind of collaboration can be encouraged and empowered in the next bill.
As everyone from NGOs to local water district managers are learning how to be more effective at meeting conservation challenges and work with a greater variety of people and landowners to craft solutions, we want to see a Farm Bill that will make more of these kinds of efforts possible by supporting smart collaboration. Simply put, efforts like these and more across all parts of our country get more hands involved in conservation so that we can continue to meet our growing challenges.
Chris Adamo is a Farm Bill conservation consultant for the TRCP. Adamo helped lead the effort for the last farm bill as staff director of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee under Senator Stabenow and is currently a senior fellow at National Wildlife Federation.
This holiday season, we’re toasting to the success of our partners who are working together to build a better future for sagebrush habitat and #350species
With a quick glance across the West, it’s clear why cooperation is a cornerstone of conservation. This is the region where multi-generational ranching families move cattle, sportsmen and women pursue trophy elk and cutthroat trout, energy and timber companies extract resources, and outdoor enthusiasts climb peaks, bike single tracks, and explore some of our nation’s largest networks of public lands.
This rich diversity of demands on the land increases the pressure to conserve sagebrush habitat and the 350 species that depend on it. In recent years, an unprecedented effort to conserve the sagebrush ecosystem—which is home to iconic species like greater sage grouse, mule deer, and pronghorn antelope—brought together conservationists, ranchers, energy developers, federal and state agencies, local governments, and outdoor recreation businesses in a landmark victory for effective collaboration.
But because administrative action to not list a species doesn’t remove trees, plant sage, and improve habitat in and of itself, a policy win for sage grouse is only half the battle. It’s our partners who are at the forefront of on-the-ground conservation work, ensuring that habitat remains intact, energy development and grazing practices are done wisely, and sage grouse ultimately remain free of the threat of an Endangered Species Act listing for years to come.
As folks come together with friends and relatives this holiday season, we’re thinking about our family—the network of fine conservation groups that unite over wildlife, habitat, and our hunting and fishing traditions—and how working together is better than working alone, especially in sagebrush country. Here’s some of what they have accomplished.
In sage grouse country, Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever have embarked on a mission to improve sagebrush habitat by treating areas of encroaching Utah juniper. This thirsty tree has invaded the sagebrush landscape and built up heavily wooded areas that can’t support sage-dependent species. Working with the Sage Grouse Initiative, PF has helped treat approximately 14,000 public acres, with another 12,000 scheduled for treatment over the next two years. That’s in addition to ongoing treatments underway on other state and private lands adjacent to the project.
The scale of the project is huge, especially considering all the organizations that must work together to gather the necessary land access, scientific expertise, and manpower, including local offices of the Bureau of Land Management, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, plus state wildlife agencies, conservation districts, local working groups, permit holders, and private landowners.
It’s a testament to how much can be accomplished by working together. Partnerships have enabled more on-the-ground success than any one individual group could have accomplished on its own, and this has allowed improvement of sage grouse habitat across fence lines, regardless of ownership.
Improving conditions for one species creates benefits for many others (one of the reasons conservationists are so obsessed with quality habitat), and that’s where the Mule Deer Foundation comes in. Muleys and sage grouse have the same habitat needs in many areas, especially on winter ranges, so responsible management of grazing and conservation of critical wintering areas benefits both species.
Throughout their range, mule deer populations are stagnant or declining, largely due to loss and fragmentation of habitat. In order to improve and restore mule deer habitat at an unprecedented level, MDF is working across sage grouse country in close coordination with (you guessed it!) partners. A 2014 study actually demonstrated that measures taken to conserve sage grouse in Wyoming also benefit mule deer migration routes, and it highlighted the role of state and federal agencies and NGOs working together.
Among agencies, tools like targeted easements on private lands and limitations of disturbance on federal lands can proactively conserve remaining migration corridors, stopover habitat, and winter ranges for mule deer. Included in those protective measures is the state of Wyoming’s sage grouse “core area” policy, which limits development in the state’s key grouse habitat, as well as conservation easements and agreements with private landowners to limit development.
To complement MDF’s existing habitat restoration program, the Natural Resource Conservation Service and the Sage Grouse Initiative have come on board to enable greater private landowner cooperation. With a substantial portion of mule deer winter range occurring on private land throughout the West, this partnership has enabled more conservation success than MDF could have achieved on its own.
The Wildlife Management Institute has lent their leadership and science expertise to the sage grouse conservation effort through the annual WMI North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference. In our circles, we refer to this conference as simply “the North American,” and the fact that it is so widely recognized is a testament to how many people WMI has reached.
For several years now, the North American has included sessions on sage grouse to highlight and expand upon efforts by WMI, state fish and wildlife agencies, and partners to advance conservation. Together, we have an opportunity to address some of the toughest issues affecting sage grouse country, and getting together in the same room helps us to forge important connections and trade ideas.
The Nature Conservancy has been working to protect sage grouse by improving and expanding current conservation efforts across the sage-steppe ecosystem, not only for the iconic bird, but also to protect families and communities in the West. Along with partners like the U.S. Department of Agriculture, they’re innovating new techniques for sagebrush seeding and planting in priority landscapes, and collaborating with private landowners to drive forward on-the-ground action.
With restoration work so dependent on sagebrush itself, TNC believes better seeding and planting techniques will ensure better success rates for the plants and wildlife. Plus, improved methods are in the American taxpayer’s best interests, as hundreds of millions of federal dollars have been spent to restore sagebrush habitat with a very low success rate.
So, obviously, the solution is Italian food. The Conservancy’s Oregon chapter has discovered an innovative approach that uses industrial-grade pasta machines to efficiently create packets of sagebrush seeds. The seed blend improves germination by creating a microclimate and lends a “power in numbers” approach, increasing the number of seeds that can break through the dry, hard soil. This work is just hitting the ground in Oregon, but TNC staff and partners are already looking at ways they can expand these efforts in places with similar challenges.
Meanwhile in northwestern Utah, a joint collaboration with five ranching families and NRCS has secured $3.7 million in public funding to protect 9,312 acres of sage-grouse habitat. One of the families involved, the Tanners, has received awards from the National Cattlemen’s Association and the Sand County Foundation for their leadership and work to conserve sage grouse and other wildlife. The Conservancy’s efforts to restore sagebrush habitat and increase sage-grouse populations would not be possible without this kind of collaboration with local landowners.
Grouse habitat encompasses millions of acres of private and public land. These magnificent birds function as primary indicator species for the health of their particular habitats, and they are held in especially high esteem by sportsmen and women, birders, biologists, and land managers. The North American Grouse Partnership works to bring the plight of all declining grouse species and habitats to the attention of the public, provides oversight for the health of grouse populations, implements solutions to the problems causing grouse declines, and encourages public policies and management decisions that will enhance important habitats and grouse populations.
For more than twenty years, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership has been at the forefront of conservation, working diligently on behalf of America’s hunters and anglers to ensure America’s legacy of habitat management and access is protected and advanced. Your tax-deductible donation will help TRCP continue its mission, allowing you to keep enjoying your favorite outdoor pursuits. Whether those pursuits are on the water or in the field, TRCP has your back, but we can’t do it alone. We invite you to step into the arena with us and donate today!
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