NWF 2018 Action Report
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Protect, Restore, Connect Wildlife Habitat Goal 1: Protected Habitats 4 Goal 2: Working Lands 8 Goal 3: Dear Friends, Water for Wildlife 12 From the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic, wildlife across our nation face unprecedented Goal 4: threats to survival. With the sobering news that one-third of all wildlife species are at Coasts 16 risk of or vulnerable to extinction, the National Wildlife Federation adopted an ambi- tious four-year strategic plan—Saving America’s Wildlife: Toward a Common Agenda Goal 5: 2018–2021—which is a clear roadmap for restoring our extraordinary wildlife heritage. Communities 18 This annual report—2018 Action Report: Advancing a Common Agenda for Wildlife—high- lights the important progress we’ve made over the first year to recover wildlife. Despite deep partisan gridlock, we achieved significant conservation wins for clean water, forest Transform Wildlife Conservation restoration, and private-lands conservation by working collaboratively with our powerful family of state and territorial affiliates and partners. We are also taking essential steps Goal 6: to evolve as an organization to become an even more effective, resilient, equitable, and Advance 21st Century Wildlife Management 22 collaborative force for wildlife. Goal 7: We hope that you will take a moment to learn more about our vision for the future, the Confront Climate Change 24 concrete steps we plan to take, and our progress over the past year. We firmly believe that when we save wildlife, we save ourselves. And by working collaboratively across this Goal 8: great country, we can ensure wildlife thrive. Defend Public Interests in Public Resources 26 In conservation, Goal 9: Address Systemic Threats to Wildlife 28 Connect Americans with Wildlife COLLIN O’MARA KATHY HADLEY President and CEO of the Chair, Board of Directors of the Goal 10: National Wildlife Federation National Wildlife Federation Conservation Stewardship Ethic 30 Goal 11: Next Generation of Conservationists 32 Goals 12 & 13: Broaden the Wildlife Consituency and Build Power for Wildlife 38 2 NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION PHOTO: NWF; COVER: ISTOCK ADVANCING A COMMON AGENDA FOR WILDLIFE 3 Protected habitats are essential for sustaining there have been unprecedented attacks on and rebuilding fish and wildlife populations, the nation’s protected habitats, resulting from providing species with the critical factors they a sharp federal pivot toward “energy domi- need for successfully foraging, breeding, and nance” and other policies that favor economic raising young. A well-connected network of development over responsible stewardship Goal 1: Protected Habitats protected areas — including national parks and wildlife conservation. As a result, the and monuments, wildlife refuges, state wildlife National Wildlife Federation has had to focus management areas, and private conservation much of its resources in this strategic plan goal easements — is not only vital for wildlife now, area on defensive actions, even as we con- but will become increasingly important in the tinue to push for more proactive solutions to face of continued habitat conversion and cli- protecting, restoring, and connecting core mate change. Unfortunately, over the past year habitat areas. Major Accomplishments We played a lead role in the success- We and our affiliates mounted a vigor- We and our Wyoming affiliate suc- ful campaign to include a federal ous effort to keep national monument cessfully petitioned the Department wildfire funding fix as part of the designations in place in the face of an of the Interior to remove some oil and spending bill passed in March 2018. unprecedented administration effort gas lease sales in the celebrated Red Addressing this longstanding U.S. to reduce or eliminate them. Although Desert to Hoback wildlife corridor, Forest Service budget issue will dra- two monuments in Utah (Bears Ears which supports the nation’s longest matically increase funding for forest and Grand Staircase-Escalante) were known mule deer migration. We are and wildland restoration and enhance severely compromised, we were suc- continuing our efforts to remove the wildlife habitat on the agency’s nearly cessful in maintaining protections for remaining lease sales from this migra- 193 million acres of lands. 25 other monuments. tory corridor. In partnership with several Western affiliates and sporting We have crafted a new climate adaptation guide and training organizations, we have eliminated disease conflict between course for Department of Defense natural resource managers bighorn and domestic sheep in central Idaho by retiring the to help them carry out climate-smart habitat management 86,000-acre Cape Horn grazing allotment. on the department’s 25 million acres, which include some of the most significant areas in the nation for endangered and imperiled species. We successfully retired the 75,000-acre Hartnet grazing allot- ment within Capitol Reef National Park in southern Utah, benefitting numerous wildlife species. 4 NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION PHOTO: ISTOCK ADVANCING A COMMON AGENDA FOR WILDLIFE 5 As part of our work to support the The Federation played a lead role in bringing veterans to lobby Congress to prevent a Southeast Conservation Adaptation rider on the National Defense Authorization Act, which would have prevented listing Strategy, we assisted state and fed- of the greater sage-grouse under the Endangered Species Act. Along with our western eral partners in creating version 2.0 of affiliates, we have been fighting to protect sage-grouse conservation plans, which are a Southeast conservation blueprint, under attack by the administration, and were part of a coalition that generated more which maps out the core habitat areas than half a million comments in support of the plans. and corridors that will be needed to protect wildlife in this rapidly chang- ing region. New Starts The strategic plan has been instrumental for elevating the importance of corridors and connectivity within the National Our National Advocacy Center in Washington, D.C., is working Wildlife Federation, leading to creation of a corridors working with affiliates and colleagues to build support for and pass group and serving as the focus for a regional summit with legislation providing federal infrastructure funding for wildlife our western affiliates. This effort is designed to enhance crossings and creating a national wildlife corridors system; and expand the corridors work already being undertaken by providing national support for regional corridors; and pro- K C many affiliates. For example, the Wyoming Wildlife Federation moting federal policies on wildlife connectivity. O T S I helped pass a bill for the state to issue license plates that : O educate the public about corridors and that generate income T O H for corridor protection. We and our affiliates are in the midst of an operation to P reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund, running a robust field campaign, paid ads, and earned media effort. We and our New Mexico and Colorado affiliates are work- ing with federal and state agencies in the Upper Rio Grande Watershed to include protection of wildlife corridors in agency management plans. 6 NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION PHOTO: ISTOCK ADVANCING A COMMON AGENDA FOR WILDLIFE 7 F W N : TO O PH Expanding our collaborative work with private single category of land use — “working lands” landowners is critical to advancing wildlife — into lands that not only work for people but Goal 2: Working Lands conservation. The National Wildlife Federa- that also provide significant co-benefits for tion’s focus on working lands over the past wildlife and ecosystem services. year continued this collaborative work while at the same time making progress on long- Overall, working lands are a critical and growing standing efforts to adjust conservation policy. area of importance for our efforts to reverse the Our approach ranges in scale from very local decline of America’s wildlife. While these lands (e.g., cover-crop champions at a farm level) are, by definition, primarily used for economic to regional (e.g., longleaf pine restoration) to benefit, our approach to building partnerships national (e.g., Farm Bill and ethanol mandate) to that provide co-benefits to wildlife and eco- international (e.g., bioenergy and high-carbon- systems was very successful in 2018, achieving stock approach). Across each of these scales many positive outcomes for conservation. and issues, our goal is to transform the largest Major Accomplishments We reached more than 6,000 farm- We sponsored the development of We secured key improvements in a ers with our Cover Crop Champions an important new monitoring tool, global set of monitoring rules, now program, which uses a peer-to-peer called Visipec, which for the first time being tested by over two dozen major model to promote adoption of this enables Brazilian meatpackers and companies, to prove their food prod- sustainable farming practice. This retailers to trace cattle to their origin ucts and other supply chains are free year, the program, advised by the Prai- location, check for deforestation and from deforestation and other impacts rie Rivers Network, expanded from the avoid producers who deforested. on high-carbon forests with rich wild- Midwest into Pennsylvania and the life habitat. Chesapeake Bay watershed. 8 NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION PHOTO: NWF ADVANCING A COMMON AGENDA FOR WILDLIFE 9 We successfully lobbied for passage of a Senate Farm Bill We introduced the “GREENER Fuels Act” in the U.S. House and containing strong conservation provisions. A broad array of Senate to overhaul the ethanol mandate in a way that would affiliates has been actively involved in working with our staff generate funding to restore habitat lost to agricultural expan- in advocating for a strong conservation title in the Farm Bill, sion and prevent future damage. Over the past 15 months, we making calls, doing action alerts, meeting with legislators, have funded several affiliates to help run a field campaign in and helping with radio interviews, letters to the editor, etc.