National State Wildlife ActionPlan/StrategyWorkshop
AGENDA
July 14-16, 2014
Hyatt Regency St. Louis at the Arch, St Louis, Missouri
All sessions take place inRoom Regency AB unless otherwise noted
Purpose:The purpose of this workshop is to reconvene the state wildlife conservation action plan/strategy community to consider current plans and progress. This workshop is an important forum for states to learn from each other and chart a course for moving forward together. There will be workshops and sessions to serve different people/state programs because conservation funding, agency support and concerns about fish and wildlife are not the same across the nation.
Invitees: state wildlife action plan coordinators, comprehensive wildlife conservation strategy coordinators, conservation partner representatives and valued guests
Sunday, July 13
Travel to St. Louis, Missouri
Hotel check-in
Collect name tags from Regency A Foyer
Meet greet participants at informal reception (please wear name tags so that
we can find where the others in our species are gathered)
Monday, July 14
7:30 amRegional AssociationTeam Breakfasts (On your own in optional regional groups)
Participants group by region informally to meet, greet, update each other on news items and plan for a successful workshop
8:30amWelcome from Missouri
Presenter: Dennis Figg
Conservation planning and implementation in the era of state wildlife action plans/strategies: Where have we been? Where are we going? How will this workshop move us forward?
9:00amHow do we ensure that the agencies we represent value the State Wildlife Action Plans?
Discussion Leaders: Chris Burkett, Jon Ambrose, Julie Kempf,Ann Holtrop
Although conservation partnerships represent the new normal in managing today’s natural resources, the plans must first be valued within the conservation agencies we represent. This session explores the meaning of in-reach, indicators that an agency values the plan, and ways to improve/build support within the agency.
10:30 amBREAK
10:45 amConservation Implementation:Operationalizing State Wildlife Action Plans/ Strategies
Discussion Leaders:Chris Burkett, Caroline Gorga, Emily Preston, Armand Gonzales
In this session we will talk about how to get other agencies and organizations to pick up strategies in your Wildlife Action Plan and run with them without you having to pay for it. We will explore what has and hasn't worked and hope to find ways to replicate success and avoid failures. This includes how to package sections of your plan for others to use, how to bring together partners to prioritize implementation, how to find the right people within other agencies to help, and ensuring your plan has something in which everyone can participate. We will ask you to share your successes and failures in each of these areas.
11:45 amLUNCH (on your own, nearby)
1:15 pmConservation Implementation CONTINUED
2:15 pmBREAK
2:30 pmLandscapeConservation – Spring Creek Watershed as a Priority Place
Spring Creek Watershed is the best opportunity for savanna habitat conservation in north Missouri. This landscape stretches into southern Iowa. Spring Creek supports 21 species of fish and 3 species of mussels. How can the conservation community sustain fish and wildlife diversity into the future? Attendees will learn about this priority conservation geography through a series of short presentations from local staff, regional staff, and conservation partners. Most of the time will be spent interacting with team representatives. How did this watershed become a conservation priority?What plants and animals (including SGCN) are being addressed? Who are the partners and what are their expectations? What money is being used to implement conservation? Is there a role for the Joint Venture and the Landscape Conservation Cooperative?What is management effectiveness evaluation? How might the concept of surrogate species benefit this initiative? How will they communicate conservation success? We will close the session with a quick report on how this initiative delivers the 8 required elements.
4:30 pmAgenda Refinement for Tuesday/End of Day Comments
5:00 pmSUPPER(on your own, nearby)
Tuesday, July 15
8:15 amMoving from Comprehensive Conservation Planning to Landscape Conservation
Bob Ziehmer, Director, Missouri Department of Conservation
Tom Draper, Deputy Director, Missouri Department of Conservation
The Missouri Department of Conservation is using conservation planning to be more strategic and purposeful with investments in specie and habitats. One of the important outcomes of comprehensive conservation planning is identifying opportunities to implement landscape scale conservation.
8:45 amPoint-Counterpoint: Wildlife Conservation Plan or Strategy: What is the difference?
Presenters: Rita Dixon and Dennis Figg
Two Concurrent Workshops
Workshop I: Building a State Wildlife Action Plan
Discussion Leader:Rita Dixon
Purpose: This workshop is for participants who are interested in moving from a strategy (the why) to a plan (the how, when, where, who, and what) (or some hybrid of the two) by using a prioritization process to first identify conservation actions, and from those, develop SMART objectives that translate into an “action” plan.
Workshop II: Building a Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy in 6 Easy Steps, 8 Required Elements, in 12 Months(Room: Sterling 9)
Discussion Leader:Dennis Figg
Purpose: This workshop is for the participants who are starting from square one, or not happy with their existing action plan, or might want to move their plan to a strategy format, or simply want to think differently about their role in this national conservation planning experiment.
10:15 amBREAK
10:30 amTwo Concurrent Workshops CONTINUED (Reporting Out)
11:00 amSuccessful State-level Partnerships for Wildlife Action Plan Implementation
Discussion Leaders: Jon Ambrose, Kristal Stoner
How has your state wildlife action plan/strategy influenced the development of new interagency conservation initiatives within your state? How has it improved or strengthened existing partnerships with other organizations? We will explore several examples of state-level partnerships informed by wildlife action plans/strategies and describe some key characteristics of these successful efforts.
11:45am LUNCH(on your own, nearby)
1:15 pmHow to Build Partnerships for Conservation Implementation
Discussion Leaders: Kristal Stoner, Amy Derosier, Anna Smith
The task of implementing at-risk species conservation at a statewide or regional scale stretches beyond the limits of available resources. Effective partnerships not only help implement conservation actions, but positively challenge the “how” we approach implementation and “why” we take particular actions. How do you begin building partnerships? Which comes first? Do you build a plan that also meets the objectives of your partners or do you invite your partners to help you build your plan? Do you select your partners from the “usual suspects” or is there an advantage to engaging unlikely partners? Once you have partners engaged, how do you keep them engaged for the long-term?
2:45 pmBREAK
3:00 pmConservation Café: Implementing Conservation with Partners*(Room Regency C)
Facilitator: Mary Pfaffko
What do partners need/expect from us? What do they bring to the table?
Format is a table and work area for short presentations/discussions by conservation partners. Every ~20 minutes participants move to a new partner table to consider that specific topic. Participants seek out the topics that interest them most.
*See list and descriptions of partner participants at the end of the agenda.
5:00 pmAgenda Refinement for Wednesday/End of Day Comments
5:30 pmSUPPER (on your own, nearby)
Wednesday, July 16th
8:15 amImplementing Landscape Scale Conservation
Discussion Leaders: Dennis Figg, Katy Reeder, Jon Ambrose
How do you implement conservation action beyond your state and region, and move toward landscape scale conservation?State Wildlife Action Plan best practices emphasize working with neighboring states to identify common priorities and pool resources for regional conservation. How do you set priorities for involvement in landscape scale conservation projects? What are the benefits and tradeoffs? Which partnerships have been most effective for your state and region? Have we prohibited regional, landscape scale conservation by developing very different plans/strategies that are difficult to interpret across political boundaries?
9:30 amLandscape Conservation – Pine-Oak Woodland restoration in the Ozark Highlands (includes from Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri)
Pine-Oak woodlands were historically a significant habitat system in the Ozark Highlands. Lacking management, the fish and wildlife of this habitat system have declined in health and abundance. Attendees will learn about this priority habitat initiative through a series of short presentations from the GCPO LCC, Central Hardwoods JV, and members of the OZH Comprehensive Conservation Team. This team will demonstrate the structured decision making process used to determine where best to conserve pine-oak woodlands. Most of the time will be spent interacting with the team representatives: What plants and animals (including SGCN) are being addressed? Who are the partners? What money is being used to implement conservation? What is the role for the Joint Venture and the Landscape Conservation Cooperative? What is management effectiveness evaluation? How can bird modeling help evaluate the scale of the initiative and the desired future condition of the habitat? How might the concept of surrogate species benefit this initiative? We will close the session with a quick report on how this initiative delivers the 8 required elements.
10:15 amBREAK
10:30 amLandscapeConservation – Pine - Oak Woodland restoration in the Ozark Highlands CONTINUED
12:00pmLUNCH (provided by AFWA at the hotel in Room Regency C)
Remarks: Ron Regan, Executive Director, Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies
1:30 pmFWS Review and Acceptance of Action Plans/Strategies
Panel: Tom Busiahn, Chief of Policy & Programs for WSFR, Paul Van Ryzin, State Wildlife Grants Management Specialist, and Regional Review Team members
The panel will facilitate discussion about the approval process for the comprehensive review of State Wildlife Action Plans.
2:15 pmMaking Plans Relevant and Used by Agencies and Partners
Discussion Leaders: Karen Terwilliger, Anna Smith
How and when do state wildlife action plans have “traction” within the host fish and wildlife agency and their partners? How can states help each other raise the profile of action plans/strategies? What is the role for AFWA in raising the profile of action plans/strategies?
2:45 pmBREAK
3:00 pmSuccessful State Wildlife Action Plan/Strategy Implementation
Discussion Leaders: Chris Burkett, Caroline Gorga, TomerHasson (invited)
Credibility is a pillar of success.What does success look like? Does implementing a project demonstrate success? Does saving a species from federal listing demonstrate success? Does increasing the distribution of a species demonstrate success? Given the expectations from the FWS and the conservation community, perhaps we should consider what we want to be measured by. Successful implementation that generates credibility is not simply about conserving at-risk species, but demonstrates the value of our conservation work to the broad conservation community.
4:00 pmAction Items and Recommended Next Steps
Discussion Leader: Norman Murray
4:30 pmWorkshop Overview/Closing Comments/Future Action Items
Discussion Leader: Mark Humpert
6:00 pmSUPPER (on your own, nearby)
List of Conservation Café Participants
- Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (Ben Thatcher)
The Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) are formal collaborative partnerships among states, tribes, federal agencies, non-governmental organizations, universities, and other groups. LCCs develop and provide integrated science-based information; develop shared, landscape-level conservation objectives; and facilitate the exchange of applied science in the implementation of conservation strategies. LCC staff from the national coordination office and individual LCCs will discuss LCC operations, science, and conservation tools as well as opportunities to increase LCC/State engagement in support of the revision and implementation of State Wildlife Action Plans.
- Miradi Software: Supporting Systematic Updates of State Wildlife Action Plans (Nick Salafsky, Armand Gonzales, Rita Dixon)
The Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation provide best practices for operationalizing collaborative adaptive management of natural resources. California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Idaho Department of Fish and Game are currently using the Open Standards and the accompanying Miradi and Miradi Share software systems to do their 2015 SWAP revisions. Each agency is working with key local stakeholders to develop detailed plans for key ecoregions / ecological sections across their state that include targets, stresses (including climate change), threats, and key conservation actions. These plans are designed to be living documents in Miradi that can be the basis for ongoing cross-agency management. In addition, these plans can be rolled-up using Miradi Share to provide a comprehensive state-wide action plan. In this session, we will provide a brief introduction to this work, answer any questions you may have, and arrange for follow-up meetings with any states interested in learning more.
- National Fish Habitat Partnership: Fishers and Farmers Partnership (Heidi Kueler)
This session will demonstrate how Fish Habitat Prioritization Models can assist State Wildlife Action Plan Coordinators. Fishers & Farmers Partnership for the Upper Mississippi River Basin is a self-directed group ofnon-governmental agricultural and conservation organizations, tribal organizations and stateand federal agencies united to add value to farms while protecting, restoring, and enhancingthe 30,700 miles of streams and rivers of the Upper Mississippi River Basin. It is one of the 19 partnerships in the National Fish Habitat Partnership. We are currently working to prioritize aquatic habitat conservation across the landscape by using our fish habitat assessment models combined with the local knowledge and expertise of our partners. Fishers & Farmers Partnership often uses the species of greatest conservation need in the State Wildlife Action Plans to help guide our work.State Wildlife Action Plan Coordinators can work with our Fish Habitat Partnerships across the country to help bring resources to focal watershed projects without a duplication of effort.
- National Wildlife Federation (Naomi Edelson)
3-4pm Incorporating Climate Change into State Wildlife Action Plans—Top 10 Tips
Climate change already is having significant impacts on the nation species and ecosystems, and these effects are ejected to increase considerably over time. As a result, climate change is now a primary lens through which conservation and natural resource management must be viewed how should we prepare for and respond to the impacts of climate change on wildlife and their habitats? What should we be doing differently in light of these climate shifts, and what actions continue to make sense? Please join me for this session and learn how to update your wildlife action plan through the lens of climate change. The recently released climate smart conservation: putting adaptation principles into practice guidebook will be reviewed and tips offered for updating your state wildlife action plan.
4-5pm Emerging Funding Issues—Be Ready, Engage your Teaming With Wildlife Coalition Now!
The State and Tribal Wildlife Grants Program was created through a heroic coalition led by the Teaming With Wildlife Coalition. The Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies’ new Blue Ribbon Panel on Sustaining America’s Diverse Fish and Wildlife Resources, the reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and even the daughter of the Conservation and Restoration Act (CARA) provide opportunities for new federal funding for state wildlife diversity conservation efforts. Additionally, state-based efforts can generate significant funding through a variety of approaches. Please join me for a discussion of these funding opportunities and how you can be ready to take advantage of them.
- NatureServe (Anne Frances)
NatureServe and the Natural Heritage Network have been assessing the conservation status of rare plants and animals for over 30 years. Conservation status assessments, along with knowledge and participation from the state natural heritage programs, can provide essential information to Species of Greatest Conservation Need. In addition, NatureServe’s Climate Change Vulnerability Index has been used by numerous states to identify species of concern that are also vulnerable to climate change. Recently, NatureServe completed a project specifically aimed at providing practical information for State Wildlife Action Plans by 1) improving the ability of states to address landscape connectivity needs in State Wildlife Action Plans, 2) improving mapping of habitats to provide consistency across State Wildlife Action Plans, and 3) developing approaches for incorporating plant species into State Wildlife Action Plans. Results from this project will be presented as case studies and as tools that State Wildlife Action Plan Coordinators can implement.
- Partners in Flightand Avian Knowledge Network(Troy Wilson)
Partners in Flight and the Avian Knowledge Network offer tools for supporting species prioritization, conservation objective setting, climate wise conservation planning, and monitoring across multiple scales.They will offer practical demonstrations about how such tools, available in different regions of North America, can be applied to State Wildlife Action Plan revisions.
- Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation(Priya Nanjappa)
Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (PARC) is an inclusive, broad network of partners and experts in amphibian and reptile conservation. Through this vast network, PARC has developed several solution-oriented and capacity building tools and trainings for supporting amphibian and reptile species conservation, monitoring, and habitat prioritization – from residential backyards to landscape-scale considerations. We will provide examples and descriptions of these tools and discuss and answer questions about how each can be applied to State Wildlife Action Plan revision and implementation.