The George Bird Grinnell Memorial Award for Distinguished Service to Natural Resource Conservation was awarded to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Regional Director Charles Wooley at the Wildlife Management Institute’s 2022 Conservation Administrators Luncheon. This luncheon was hosted at last month’s 87^th North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference in Spokane, Washington.

At the 87^th North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference last month in Spokane, Washington, Wildlife Management Institute (WMI) staff hosted a special session with speakers representing state agency relevancy-related projects. The speakers during The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Relevancy: Tips from Trailblazers session represented four states, offering their experiences and practical advice from multiple scales of implementation—from an internal, one-person program to an agency-wide scale reaching out to diverse constituencies. While the speakers acknowledged the challenges that the pandemic created for their projects, they have made significant progress. Their work reflects the core reason the Fish and Wildlife Relevancy Roadmap was written the way it was: A comprehensive collection of strategies in need of testing through application to document their utility/effectiveness (or not) at engaging broader constituencies. The session’s trailblazers recognized the need to test applications of understanding and developing relationships with partners that would lead to successful delivery of improved conservation outcomes.

Increases in land values and commodity prices will encourage landowners and producers to increase production from all types of land where possible. However, increases in input prices and potential input shortages may cause some to reconsider the profitability of potential farmland when those costs are incorporated. Conservation advocates will be challenged to slow clearing of fencelines, terracing, tiling, and other land improvement practices in the near term.

Scot Williamson of the Wildlife Management Institute (WMI) was honored with the 2022 Robert McDowell Award at the Northeast Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (NEAFWA) annual meeting in Long Branch, New Jersey. Scot is a well-known presence in northeastern conservation issues and across the country.