Outdoor News Bulletin

As NFWF launches its first NextGen Business Plan, states have a timely chance to align their wildlife action plans with long-term, large-scale investment and influence conservation for decades to come.

At a time when conservation challenges are expanding faster than the capacity to meet them, a unique opportunity has emerged, one that connects the next generation of State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAPs) with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s (NFWF) new 30-year NextGen Business Plans. This alignment offers an opportunity to link state-led conservation priorities with large-scale investment strategies that can shape the course of wildlife conservation for decades ahead.

For decades the story has been the same: a species slides toward the brink, the federal government lists it under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and suddenly millions of acres of private land become a regulatory minefield. Farmers, ranchers, and forest owners, people who often care deeply about the wildlife on their property, are told they must now secure a federal permit if they want certainty that routine operations or even beneficial habitat work won’t trigger fines, lawsuits, or land-use restrictions.

When I sat down to write the President’s Message for this month’s ONB, I had a big heavy topic in mind. I hammered out nearly four pages of thought. I’ll admit it was a bit of a mess, as most of my President’s Message musings typically begin. Part of the reason I enjoy contemplating conservation challenges in the President’s Message is that it gives me the opportunity to think and write. This helps me get my own thoughts straight and attain clarity in how I might be thinking about a particular conservation-related challenge or what questions might be appropriate to pose for wildlife conservation professionals to ponder.

Red spruce forests, once widespread across the central and southern Appalachians, now persist only in scattered fragments on mountaintops. Researchers are partnering with local community groups to restore the spruce forest’s structure and reconnect forest patches, creating resilient habitat for wildlife like the Virginia northern flying squirrel, while also protecting clean water, carbon storage, and outdoor recreation in the Central Appalachians.