Summary of Central Grasslands Roadmap Summit ~ Session 4: Leaders Respond

Tuesday, August 4th, 10:00 am - 12:00pm MDT

Disclaimer

Summarizing a 2.5 hour speaker session that was filled with insights, feedback, and carefully thought-out presentations is a near impossibility.  Leaders, speakers, and panelists for our “Leaders Respond” session today, August 4th, dug in and provided incredibly comprehensive and diverse reflections on the current Roadmap and its overall direction.  An attempt at a summary seems inconclusive, and might even undermine the nuance of their talks and perspectives. None-the-less, we strive here to elevate some themes that arose from more than one speaker, and themes that seem to offer new guidance for places in the Roadmap. On the agenda page of the roadmap, we have linked PowerPoints where they were provided, in addition to a video of the entire session that we highly recommend reviewing.

Overall

- Extensive excitement, affirmation and support for what has been drafted so far (paraphrase from most every speaker) … congratulations all around, “Fully supportive and I commit on behalf of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks support this extraordinary work and its current direction. Let’s make sure to keep the momentum going” (Martha Williams, Director of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks).

- The Roadmap is on the right path with inclusiveness, collaboration, and bringing together disparate efforts (Jerome Ford, US Fish and Wildlife Asst. Director).  Stay in this direction as there is still much more to do to get this right, “For me this effort is all about shared leadership and shared responsibility: shared landscapes, shared vision, and shared commitment” (Rick Truex, U.S. Forest Service).

- Significantly more work to elevate Traditional Ecologic Knowledge (TEK) and include Indigenous/First Nations in the process and the solutions. Find ways to make sure that funding doesn’t stop at the red line (boundary) … ensure technical assistance crosses in Indigenous/First Nations more expansively.

- Focus in on the actionable, tangible, concrete priorities.  We will learn a lot more when we get to work on actions and tasks. (paraphrase from Terry Steinwald, Director of North Dakota Game and Fish, and Carter Smith, Executive Director of Texas Parks and Wildlife).

- Look for overlap, collaboration and integration between sectors, “our experience is the best conservation balances what is good for the resource AND what is good for the landowner” and “coordinate delivery” at a large scale and through “locally led conservation.” “We need more partnerships … to help develop and use new technology, gather field data, and monitor the effectiveness of conservation” (Jimmy Bramblett, NRCS).

- We have to place emphasis on how we engage private landowners, as ‘human community health and sustainability’ is critical, (affirmed by Carter Smith - Texas Parks and Wildlife, Tuda Libby Crews – Ute Creek Cattle Company, Lesli Allison - Western Landowners Alliance, Grady Grissom – Rancher, and Jerome Ford, USFWS). Landowners make a lot of [impactful] decisions daily, (Grady Grissom). Knowledge-sharing should not always be top-down, knowledge should be bottom up too, coming from landowners …  the phrasing that we need to educate landowners can be offensive to landowners … education should be a two-way street (Lesli Allison - Western Landowners Alliance).

- Attention to Funding: Local collaborative efforts are crucial but can’t survive due to lack of funding, increase collaboration between funders and invest in local efforts (Lesli Allison - Western Landowners Alliance, Nicole Korfanta – Knobloch Family Foundation). -few sponsoring organizations fund inter-sector coordination as an end it itself. Instead it is usually recognized in funding as fundable as an incidental activity to achieving more tangible and measurable conservation outcomes like "acres secured, enhanced or restored"

                  … but conservation delivery agents and funding applicants see the need for dedicated, core funding to coordination as a foundational initiative in its own right. Without it, disparate projects roll out in uncoordinated or not optimally coordinated ways. In other words, coordinated project delivery at the landscape level comes at a cost that may be greater than small “overhead” allowances in project funding cover. The roadmap seems to acknowledge this but we may have to work on a change in mindset of sponsors to get the resourcing that the long-game of collaborative conservation requires.

– A North American Grassland Conservation Act is an interesting concept and one where we should leverage existing policies and programs, but we need to recognize the challenge of budgets and the availability of funds … there isn’t new money (Jerome Ford and others).

… Modeling off of North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) … 7 assessment questions: 1) waterfowl benefits, 2) other wetland associated bird benefits, 3) priority geographic areas and relationship to meeting local conservation plans objectives, 4) declining wetland type, 5) longevity of conservation proposed (such as permanent vs short term), 6) State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP) benefit, and 7) partnership (delivery mechanism and support) aspects. (offered by Bob Ford - United States Fish and Wildlife Service).

- Need for an explicit metropolitan strategy [public awareness campaign] to win hearts and minds repositioning grasslands as solutions that matter to growing numbers of people (climate, rural livelihoods, biodiversity, food access), (Justin Pepper – Bobolink Foundation, and affirmed or mentioned by several other speakers).

Key Take Aways: Sound Bites

- Social and biological/environmental sciences combined are a strength

- Need policies that level the playing field for cultivated and rangelands.

- What we move forward has to work economically for the landowners/managers

- With federal funds we need financial accountability and cost effective approaches.

- Need partnerships to gather data and make accessible while protecting private landowners

- Some of our declining resources like birds are mobile so have to factor in movement on the landscape, climate and changes in conditions, identify limiting life states and relate to timing and location.

- Research has to be linked to on the ground practices- have to elevate what matters/influences landowner decisions

- Need to get in vision on why grasslands matter and why the 8 sectors matter

- Learn as we go and be prepared for iterative change

- Need clear land conservation strategies and build model like Partnership for Rangeland Trust, link with Joint Vetures (JV8), State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP).

- Be clear as we move forward on what success looks like, what is final destination and are we on the right path for getting there.

- Speaker bureau needs to include voices from the land as well as researchers, policy folks etc.

- Get community influencers to engage in the roadmap and help promote/apply. Rural community vitality is key for landowners.

- Area is a patchwork of grass and cultivated land, make sure all lands are part of the conservation equation.

- Need a prioritized list for land conservation so funders know where to invest.

- Get to actions

- Steps to get us moving in same direction that ultimately get to the big goals

- Federal programs like Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) SAFE, Working Lands for Wildlife are looking for input on how to prioritize and implement, get involved, get national recognition for grasslands with feds

- Be innovative and iterative

Additional Notes from Speakers and Panelists

Carter Smith - Texas Parks and Wildlife

• Biggest challenges: working at scales that matter: have resources to draw on to support efforts

• Recognizing where plan is on development continuum, where is the rubber hitting the road?

• We have to place emphasis on how we engage private landowners

• Plan is not vacuum, work already going on, let’s not recreate the wheel

• Need to be clear with each other on what success looks like, unite on final vision

Lesli Allison, Western Landowners Alliance

• Need money and labor, public policy

• Local collaborative efforts are crucial but can’t survive due to lack of funding

  • Funding may be obtained

  • Create decision-making structures

• Knowledge-sharing should not always be top-down, knowledge should be bottom up too

• Need to educate landowners can be offensive

  • Education should be two-way street

• Any policy at federal or state level should adhere to status quo at state and local level, those on the ground should have input

• Some want to cut out middleman between funding and landowners, still need distributor/delegator

Monica Terkildsen, Oglala Lakota

• Don’t grey out indigenous land while developing the road map, no redlining with investment, include our voices

  • A note from TNC for clarity on one of these: Navajo Nation asked TNC to gray out reservations in analysis so a collaborative dialogue could be held about meaning and intent of analysis. TNC grayed them out to respect that request, will continue to expand this respectful engagement

• Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) combined with modern practices

• Land acknowledgment

Robin Bloom, Environment and Climate Change Canada

• Jimmy’s comments about financial accountability and cost effectiveness are accurate, federal funding has conditions/restrictions that are currently detailed in roadmap

• Additional presentation to come from Robin to highlight other components

Alice Boyle, Kansas State University

• Integrating different sources of ecological knowledge is difficult, scientists aren’t taught how to do that necessarily. Nonetheless, Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) is highly valuable. First Nations people have longer view of environmental variability and disturbance regimes — this knowledge may be key to figuring out how to incorporate TEK into modern scientific practices

  • From Diandra Bruised Head, Blood Tribe Land Management … Using TEK and western science for grassland restoration: https://thenarwhal.ca/carbon-cache-grasslands/

Maria Elena Rodarte, Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas

• Necessary change environmental laws to regulate/reduce land use changes from natural grasslands to agricultural land

• Roadmap should include a strong education and culture program for the conservation and rational use of grasslands, associated species and ecosystem functionality, aimed at producers and inhabitants of towns and cities within the large grassland area, with similar educational and communication methods for the three countries

Nick Hernandez, Makoce Agriculture

• There’s no data/contact information between Indigenous land managers & conservation players

• Recognize Indigenous land carefully on the maps.

Diana Leiker, Tri State Generation and Transmission

• Appreciate inclusion of industry

Jim Eckberg, General Mills

• Grasslands occur in matrix of other landscapes, need to think about grasslands within regions

• Let’s put together a group to work on the Sustainability Models

Kevin McAleese, Sand County Foundation

• Reinforce comments about the risk of “condescension” creeping in to the outreach around the roadmap, particularly for communication to landowners.

• It will be good to address the role of fire, grazing, easements, invasive species control, and the whole infrastructure apparatus that those kinds of tools require. Without the infrastructure and folks willing to invest in them, restoration is hopeless. 

• Potential partners: Connect with the Ecosystem Services Market Consortium, reach out to the Rainwater Basin Joint Venture.

• Advance a network of demonstration properties to create a tangible model and help people visualize what an end point looks like?

• Who is our public and what do we want them to do in regards to a public awareness campaign?

• Identify short term “wins” that arise from the lowest cost-benefit ratio investments … that is a high priority sales pitch to foundations and corporate sponsors.

Nicole Korfanta, Knobloch Family Foundation

• There could be more collaboration between funders

Terry Steinwand, North Dakota Game and Fish

• Any plan is good until we get into it … may need to readjust when implementation starts

Martha Williams, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks

• Full-scale conservation requires changes in mindsets

Michael Parr, American Bird Conservancy

• Unified message is critical

Grady Grissom, Rancher

• Finding ways to provide feedback and knowledge from on the ground back to academia

• Scientists only get to make few decisions, landowners make a handful daily

• Roadmap does not capture that point yet, belongs under Partnership and Engagement

Cindy Vukasin, USDA Farm Service Agency 

• Build strong project plans with Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)

• Getting additional safe programs in states

• National priority area: working with office in DC, specifies for Prairie Pothole JV

Track Current Work ~ Just A Few Examples from Today Include:

·       Organizations like NRCS are supporting this work extensively already: $4 Billion in conservation investments to work on private lands, 23-conservation programs in coordinated fashion to more seamlessly deliver better targeted conservation (see Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) with Agriculture Land Easements). Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP): (https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/national/programs/financial/rcpp/)

·       U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) owns and manages over 4 million acres through the Great Plains states, and the realty program has secured grassland easements on an additional 1.8 million acres in northern plains; interest in grassland easements outpaces available resources, so we have a waiting list of several hundred landowners; USFWS has nearly 50 Partners for Fish & Wildlife biologists across this landscape working with private landowners and partners to restore 175,000 acres a year in the Great Plains; Migratory Bird Program is leading and/or supporting several research and monitoring projects for priority grassland birds. USFWS has a line of willing landowners wanting to pursue Partners for Fish and Wildlife projects, but we are faced with lack of funding.

·       We can’t do this alone. The migratory bird Joint Ventures across the Great Plains are collaborating across their normal boundaries & partnerships in a mega-partnership known as the Joint Venture 8 (JV-8). Every one of our programs works closely in partnership with state, federal, tribal, non-profit, private landowner and industry colleagues: we need to broaden that net even further.