My folks owned and ran a tiny “ma and pa” motel in North Central Iowa during the late 1960s and ’70s when the area was a premier destination for pheasant hunters in pursuit of Iowa longtails. My earliest experiences were shagging beers from the bottom of the pop machine for hunters in the bird-cleaning room, plucking tail feathers, and marveling at the stories that were told about days afield. That was all near the end of the “good ol’ days” of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Soil Bank Program. Clearly, these memories and the fact that my father was the pheasant biologist for the Iowa Conservation Commission influenced me in my career selection. 

The draw from South Dakota as the country’s pheasant capitol was strong, and after high school I headed west to South Dakota State University in Brookings. My schooling in wildlife management included many discussions about relevant factors that influenced wild gamebird populations like pheasants and quail. I learned about the ups and downs of bird populations tied to factors like the Great Depression and World War II, when millions of acres of idled land supported high bird levels, and more about the heyday of the Soil Bank Program that generations of hunters so fondly experienced and reflected back upon. Unfortunately, I witnessed firsthand what the later 1970s and ’80s brought to the landscape in intense fencerow-to-fencerow agriculture and the subsequent decline of bird numbers.

The day President Ronald Reagan signed the Farm Bill creating the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), on December 23, 1985, has proven to be a key date of my early career. CRP’s millions of acres of new grasslands became a haven for wildlife, and by the mid-’90s, it was CRP’s wildlife legacy and the combined voices of millions of sportsmen and sportswomen that made a difference in Washington D.C., allowing the program to continue. I’m sure I didn’t realize it then, but CRP would become a core aspect of the rest of my career.

The Power of Partners—The Process

To get anything accomplished in D.C., it boils down to support from the current presidential administration, 60 senators, and at least 218 representatives. Do the math: To be successful, being bipartisan is a big part of the roadmap to victory for conservation. And building partnerships is the key to garnering support.

The first time I provided testimony in D.C., it was before the Internet, and my testimony was submitted on behalf of four groups: Pheasants Forever, Ducks Unlimited, The National Wildlife Federation, and the Wildlife Management Institute. It felt like a pretty good accomplishment at the time. The last piece of testimony that I gave was on behalf of more than 40 conservation groups that represented over 6 million sportsmen and sportswomen.

Partners Matter

During the summer of 2000, I attended the charter meeting of what would become known as the American Wildlife Conservation Partnership (AWCP). Representatives from many of our nation’s leading conservation groups spent several days working toward a charter that would facilitate enhanced communications and cooperation among our groups. At its core, AWCP is a communications and information-sharing network and not a traditional membership organization. In the early 1990s, Jim Range, a tough-talking, hard-charging D.C. lobbyist (and my friend and colleague), helped guide much of CRP’s first major reauthorization and played an instrumental role in developing what was then called “open fields”—provisions to support critically needed access for hunters. Thanks to Jim, I became involved with today’s Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP), as did Pheasant’s Forever’s CEO Howard Vincent who continues to serve on the TRCP Board. This group differs in that member organizations jointly vet and develop policy recommendations. Both TRCP and AWCP have magnified individual voices of conservationists and groups throughout the beltway in D.C.  

Okay, what’s the point of all this? Your individual voice can and does make a difference, and through various pathways like TRCP and AWCP, your individual priorities and concerns are expressed more effectively.  

In terms of results, I spent much of my career chasing a suite of federal farm bill conservation programs highlighted by the successful CRP through various farm bills passed into law every several years, most recently in 2018. Collectively working through membership and participating with TRCP and through association with AWCP’s multiple voices, other conservation success stories were also attained during the last Congress. The John Dingell Conservation Act, Great American Outdoors Act, and American Conservation Enhancement Act all mean a brighter future for hunters and conservationists. Each of these successes worked through Congress and were signed into law by then President Donald Trump. All will benefit from permanent full funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, as well as support for new refuge system lands and programs focused on quality fish and wildlife habitats.

And if you start to think I just view all of this through rose-colored glasses, we’ve seen some serious setbacks for conservation in recent years. It was painful to watch as CRP slid to the lowest enrollment level in the program’s 35-year history, irrespective of also signing the 2018 Farm Bill that called for CRP expansion. Every bird hunter should be concerned. I’m personally concerned about administrative rollbacks to the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and more.  

Perhaps we can all agree that from a conservation viewpoint D.C. is a crazy mix of both successes and failures and that history will be the final judge. Perhaps some agree that what happens in D.C. doesn’t mean anything unless it benefits us back home, our families, and future generations, but here’s where partnerships can once again be helpful.