Annotated Agenda

Page 5 of 5

ANNOTATED AGENDA

Spring 2007 Meeting

Lower Mississippi Valley

Joint Venture Management Board

East Texas Ecological Education Center

Tyler, Texas

June 13-14, 2007

Meeting Theme: Next Steps in the Evolution of the LMV Joint Venture Partnership

As a construct for conservation, the concept of Joint Ventures is now more than 20 years old; yet the expectation and demand for what is to be achieved through ecoregional partnerships continues to grow. The NAWMP Assessment and the U.S. NABCI Committee Report on coordinated bird monitoring typify the ever increasing expectations of national and international bird conservation plans. Moreover, state Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategies are now being viewed collectively as vehicles for conservation not only within their specific state but on regional and even national scales, and the expectations for multi-state and inter-agency collaboration in their implementation only increase. On a host of fronts, whether as private, state, or federal partners, we are being presented with the need to not simply coordinate our actions but leverage our assets to achieve biological outcomes that exceed any individual organization’s grasp. The agenda has been structured to not simply review areas of progress but prompt Board discussion, consideration, and action on several issues affecting the next generation of the LMV Joint Venture partnership in meeting such demands.

Tuesday, June 12 – Travel Day

6:30 p.m. – Those wanting to rendezvous for supper will meet in the lobby of the Wingate Hotel and we’ll make a decision on a local restaurant.

Wednesday, June 13

8:30 – Introductions and Opening Remarks – Hamilton

8:45 – The Service’s Strategic Habitat Conservation Framework: What is it and What are its Implications to the LMV Joint Venture Partnership – Hamilton/Baxter

Since the Board’s last meeting, the Directorate of the Fish and Wildlife Service has approved a concept described as “Strategic Habitat Conservation” (SHC) that is intended to increase the Service’s capacity to work as a partner in landscape-level approaches to conservation. On a national level, the development of the SHC Framework was influenced considerably by the experiences, approaches, and methods of the LMV Joint Venture partnership. Moreover, the Southeast Region has identified the LMV as a focal area for implementing Strategic Habitat Conservation. Accordingly, LMV partners have an opportunity to further influence and guide by example not only the Service’s long term approach to landscape-level conservation but the continuing evolution of Joint Ventures as a business model for effecting conservation at ecoregional scales. Baxter will provide an overview of the SHC concept and its implications to both the Service and the LMVJV; Hamilton will share his observations on the opportunities afforded our conservation partnership. The SHC document is provided at Tab 2.

9:15 – Four Concepts from the Business Community that Can Strengthen Our Joint Venture Business Model – Baxter and Uihlein

Recognizing that new approaches to the “business” of waterfowl conservation were required, the framers of the 1986 NAWMP borrowed from the business world the concept of “joint ventures.” Though the Plan’s authors were unable to precisely articulate the concept or detail its workings when applied to the business of conservation, they nonetheless set us on this new path. With this agenda topic, we will ask you as a Board to look again to the business world and consider the potential of four emerging concepts to strengthen our Joint Venture partnership’s approach to business:

·  The concept of “Business Ecosystems” as a means of leveraging assets and relationships.

·  The concept of “The Theory of the Business” in articulating shared missions.

·  The concept of “Core Competencies” in building shared capacities.

·  The concept of “Value Proposition” in communicating the value-added contributions the partnership seeks.

9:45 – Break

10:15 – Communicating our Joint Venture Business Model – Board Discussion of Options and Actions

The Board has discussed on numerous occasions the need and the value of communicating the Joint Venture approach to business more clearly within their respective organizations and on several occasions have asked the JV Office to assist in that effort. Likewise, there is increasing need to communicate the LMV approach to business in broader conservation venues as demonstrated by the Conservation Design Plenary Session at last year’s AFWA meeting; last December’s “Business Model Roundtable” of all U.S. Joint Venture offices; and now also the potential opportunities that would come from being seen nationally within the Service as a “focal area” for advancing Strategic Habitat Conservation. Your JV Coordinator will be asking you to consider options for developing a communication document intended to more precisely articulate our partnership business model within our respective organizations and within the larger conservation community.

11:00 – Improving the Capabilities of the Joint Venture Office in Supporting the LMVJV Conservation Business Model – Baxter and Uihlein

The Joint Venture Office’s ability to support the LMV Joint Venture partnership has been aided immeasurably by its close and long standing association with the USGS Mississippi Valley Field Station of Patuxent Wildlife Research Center (PWRC) and more recently with the USGS National Wetlands Research Center (NWRC). The Service’s recently adopted “Strategic Habitat Conservation Framework” places a premium on not only strengthening but institutionalizing its science/management relationship with USGS. To this end, the Service’s Southeast Region is pursuing a cooperative agreement with USGS’s Central and Eastern Regions that would create more formal linkages between the two agencies in the LMV to include recognizing the Joint Venture Office, the USGS Mississippi Valley Field Station, and collocated NWRC personnel as one operational unit – the FWS/USGS LMV Conservation Science Office. Tab 4 contains a draft document that speaks to the purpose, function, and organization of an FWS/USGS integrated office in supporting the LMVJV partnership. Please familiarize yourselves with this draft document as background for providing guidance and direction on the purpose, function, and organization of what would in effect be the next generation LMV Joint Venture Office.

11:30 – Board Expectations for the LMV Conservation Science Office

12:00 – Lunch (Brought In)

1:00 – Responding to the Challenges of the NAWMP Assessment – Board Discussion and Action

Tab 5 contains three documents that collectively speak to the challenges to Joint Venture partners in the next phase of Plan implementation. The first two are a March 12, 2007 letter from the U.S. and Canadian Co-Chairs of the NAWMP Implementation Committee (Plan Committee) and an undated response from the Plan Committee to the 27 Recommendations contained in the final report of the Assessment Steering Committee. In combination, these two documents speak to the challenges laid before the Plan community as a whole. The third document is a March 6, 2007 letter from the three Assessment Steering Committee members that conducted the LMVJV review. It is directed through the LMVJV Board Chair and LMVJV Coordinator for your consideration and action – collectively as a Board and individually as a representative of an LMVJV/Plan community organization. As such it contains “General Observations”, “Concerns” and eight “Recommendations” specific to our Joint Venture. Please familiarize yourself with the scope and substance of these documents as preparation for addressing the following Action Item – “The Management Board charges the Waterfowl Working Group in coordination with the Joint Venture Office to review and consider the 27 recommendations of the Assessment Steering Committee Report and the findings and recommendations of the March 6 LMVJV-specific letter and provide the Board a plan of action for incorporating these findings and results into the Joint Venture partnership’s planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation efforts.”

1:30 – Refining Our Biological Objectives for Waterfowl – A Report from the Waterfowl Working Group – Manlove

As reported to the Board at last spring’s meeting, a priority of the LMVJV Waterfowl Working Group over the past several months has been one of reviewing and refining the foraging habitat objectives intended to link the on-the-ground conservation efforts of Joint Venture partners to the larger population goals and objectives of the NAWMP. The Waterfowl Working Group has reviewed the biological assumptions foundational to the process; updated data and information on management capacity on public and private lands; and developed specific “decision rules” on how data would be brought to bear in informing the several decisions integral to the process. Chad Manlove (DU) will brief the Board on the Working Group’s efforts. A draft of their written report is provided at Tab 6. Action will be requested of the Board on two fronts – formally adopting the revised objectives as those of the LMV Joint Venture and communicating and integrating the objectives into the conservation programs of your respective organizations.

2:15 – Break

2:45 – Restoring, Managing and Monitoring Bottomland Forest Resources – A Report from the Forest Resource Conservation Working Group – Wilson, Ribbeck, and Rideout

Summary Briefing of the Working Group Report, “Restoration, Management, and Monitoring of Forest Resources in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley: Recommendations for Enhancing Wildlife Habitat” – Ribbeck

At last Spring’s meeting, Kenny and Randy provided the Board an overview of the purpose, progress, organization, and status of the Working Group’s efforts to prepare a comprehensive report intended to further our collective ability to restore, manage, and monitor bottomland hardwood forests in the MAV where wildlife conservation is a primary purpose. While the report is intended to guide conservation programs in the MAV, particularly on the system of state/federal management areas, it is deemed informative to the conservation of bottomland forest systems across the Southeast. Kenny will summarize for the Board the report’s purpose, findings, conclusions, and recommendations. Given the comprehensive nature of the report and its associated length, you will be provided a copy under separate cover prior to the meeting.

Overview and Implementation Status of the “LMVJV Forest Breeding Bird Monitoring Program” – Rideout

Again, at last Spring’s meeting, Randy and Kenny defined as a further priority of the Forest Resource Working Group the development of a coordinated forest breeding bird monitoring program (Tab 7) that would enable Joint Venture partners to better assess the biological response of priority species to forest management. Catherine Rideout (AGFC) will brief the Board on the substantial progress that has been made, emphasizing the program’s purpose and objectives; its relevance to state CWCS’s and the U.S. NABCI report, “Opportunities for Improving Avian Monitoring” (Tab 7); and the actions of one state wildlife agency (AGFC) in furthering its implementation.

Presentation and Discussion of Action Items – Wilson

A series of action items are being developed and will be provided to the Board when the final agenda and associated background materials are mailed on May 25th. These action items will relate to the Board:

·  Formally accepting the forest restoration, management, and monitoring report as a technical report of the LMV Joint Venture.

·  Integrating the Report’s finding, conclusions, and recommendations into the conservation programs of their respective agencies and organizations.

·  Adopting the Forest Breeding Bird Monitoring Program as a coordinated avian monitoring program of the LMV Joint Venture and communicating same to the U.S. NABCI committee.

·  Providing operational support to the “LMV Joint Venture Coordinated Forest Breeding Bird Monitoring Program.”

4:15 – Carbon Sequestration and Ecological Services: Round 2?

While terrestrial sequestration activities on the ground in the LMV have slowed considerably from this time four or five years ago, much is occurring nationally in the larger arena of climate change. As background we will briefly review some of what is emanating from DOE-funded regional partnerships (recall we were unsuccessful in competing for the first round of DOE funding) and hear a presentation from Board Member Lee Moore on TNC activities related to marketing ecological services. Board members should come prepared to offer their insights and observations as to how Joint Venture partners can respond in coordinated manner to the opportunities and challenges associated with carbon sequestration and biofuels.

5:00 – Adjourn: Refreshments and Relaxation on the grounds of the Nature Center

6:30 – East Texas Fish Fry – Nature Center

Thursday, June 14

8:30 – Strengthening our Capacity for Conservation Planning and Assessment in the West Gulf Coastal Plain

West Gulf Coastal Plain/Central Hardwoods National Science Support Project – Tirpak

In October 2005, with the hiring of post-doctoral fellows John Tirpak and Todd Farrand through the Missouri Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit, we were able to initiate a cooperative project with partners from the Central Hardwoods Joint Venture. Funded through the USGS National Science Support Program, this project has proceeded under the direction of Dr. Frank Thompson of the Forest Service’s North Central Forest Experiment Station and Dr. Dan Twedt of Patuxent’s Mississippi Valley Field Station. It will significantly increase our conservation planning and assessment capability in the West Gulf Coastal Plain (and ultimately the East Gulf Coastal Plain), specifically our ability to: (1) characterize the landscape's ability to attract and sustain priority forest breeding birds at an ecoregional scale, (2) monitor changes in carrying capacity overtime, and (3) predict sustainability into the future based on observed patterns and expected land use changes. The project is scheduled for completion in October of this year, and John Tirpak will brief you on the outputs and their expected utility. This will be an informational briefing intended to provide background for an ensuing discussion of the next steps needed from WGCP partners.

Next Steps in WGCP Conservation Planning – Board Discussion

Board members will be asked to discuss the role of their respective staff members in applying this increased capacity for ecoregional-level conservation planning – specifically the development of spatially explicit goals and objectives that reflect measurable biological outcomes and decision support tools that can guide and inform the on-the-ground delivery of conservation programs.

9:30 – Break

10:00 – Increasing our Ability to Coordinate On-the-Ground Conservation Delivery

Among the earliest expectations that the NAWMP placed upon Joint Ventures was one of increased coordination in the delivery of conservation programs. At last Springs Board meeting, there was consensus on the need to refocus and better coordinate our respective private lands conservation efforts, particularly in the MAV. Likewise, from the perspective of Joint Venture Office staff, our partnership could improve its coordination efforts in developing and formulation NAWCA grant proposals (Standard Grant and Small Grant). We will ask the Board to consider creating more formal, state-specific venues for coordinating the delivery of their respective programs. Specifically, we will offer for the Board’s consideration the concept of “Conservation Delivery Networks.” Implementation of the concept would involve the Board approving a charter (see Tab 10) to define and guide the efforts of such groups and appointing staff members with the appropriate coordination responsibilities.