Episode 1 - Introduction

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[Introduction]

0:00

Hi! And welcome to The Land Steward Podcast. I'm your host, Brittany Wegner, or you can call me BW as some people do. And I'm excited to dive in with you every single month to chat about private lands, military land sustainability, and of course wildlife conservation. I'm our institute's storyteller, if you can't already tell, and I'm passionate about focused and resilient land conservation through collaboration and creativity. Cause I think at the end of the day, without the collaboration opportunities with our partners through educational institutes and with private landowners, I don't think that we're able to achieve some of these really impactful landscape scale-conservation efforts.

Then, you know, you sprinkle in a little creativity, and it highlights just how unique the state of Texas and beyond is. From varying ecoregions to different types of wildlife challenges, you really have to, you know, kind of tap into that creative side. So, I'm incredibly passionate about working and living in this space and I'm excited to share that with you through this podcast. So, I'm with the Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute and we are based in College Station, we have an office in San Antonio, in DC, and sometimes we say we're scattered across the United States, you know, as random offices of one or two researchers in different areas of the U.S. where our work is really needed.

So that’s exciting to know that we’re kind of… we’re able to meet the challenge where it is. So very simply our goal is to help solve some of those very complex natural resource challenges. And we do that through research. We have some incredible and world-renowned scientists under our roof which we are very grateful to have every day. We do that through engagement and outreach because what is the point of building and creating and writing and discovering these initiatives through sound science if we can’t also share that with the land managers and practitioners that are out there on the ground every day. And, you know, the third, I would say, part of our institute is policy. Which is really the way we’re able to guarantee some of those long-term conservation legacies and some of those things that have been defining for the Institute. Especially when it comes to endangered species and military land sustainability.

So, our goal is, I would say, to lean into obviously that research and discovery and provide those resources and management solutions to you guys! To land stewards no matter where you fit into that. So, I'm here to try and share some of this with you in a new medium. I think we originally sat down and talked about a podcast 2 years ago and, you know, you're sitting in your chair swiveling around a conference table and you think “Do we need a podcast? What does this effort look like?” And I'm just extremely grateful for the team that has been able to come together to make this a possibility.

[BW Background]

3:37

So, I do want to share a little bit about me cause you're going to be hearing my voice every month and my hope is that you like it enough to share it with some other people so we can continue to share some sound science. I’m a native Texan and I'm really proud of that. I am a 6th generation rancher - my kiddos are the 7th generation which is exciting to think about. And I spend a lot of time, especially now, but throughout my life I’ve spent a lot of time driving through those front gates and just being extremely grateful to be able to enjoy the land that we have and to acknowledge what a blessing that is to have that place to go outside of our every day. So, we're kind of in between what we would call like "absentee landowner" cause we don't live on the ranch but we're there quite often. My dad and my grandfather and my uncle are actually out there a few times a week, and we try to get out there as often as we can. Especially with our two kiddos, just giving them that same experience of coming through those, the front gate, and understanding that it's their responsibility. It's our collective responsibility to steward that land and to invest the best parts of ourselves in it because that land is going to be there well beyond we will be.

We did in about 2011 we put a conservation easement on our property cause we have, you know, it's heritage. It's 1600 acres in the Hill Country that we don't ever want to see broken up or developed. And, you know, the Hill Country area is truly very beautiful and I heard a quote one time about how we are truly loving the Hill Country to death. So being able to contribute to the long-term conservation of even that small little slice of the grand Hill Country is really, kind of, I mean, soul-fulfilling for me. And it's something that, you know, you can guarantee the time and the work and the resource investment there is going to be worth it in the long term for generations to come.

5:55

That was something that was an interesting part of putting that conservation easement on the property was how do you make decisions for people you’re never gonna meet? Cause that conservation easement is put into place in perpetuity. So, it’s definitely a defining part of my life, it’s something, again, I’m excited to bring my kinds into. It’s a place where our family comes together and we may not agree on all the things but we agree on having that piece of land to protect and be responsible for. So, it’s a little bit about me and how I’m connected to the land.

I met my husband at Texas A&M when we were in school, like longer than 15 years ago, I think. And his family also owns property in a totally different ecoregion from us, out in the East Texas piney woods. And it’s been a, just a really eye-opening experience to be able to go from - well right now, you know, it’s summer time so it’s pretty dang dry in the Hill Country – and to, you know, work on the certain conservation efforts that we have there and what that looks like in that ecoregion and then go to the piney woods where they have, you know, four times the amount of rain we have and sometimes they achieve that in a single month. Their soil is different, you know, the wildlife is different, the plant species are different. But just to watch the way that they manage, you know we both have cattle on both properties so it’s just a cool part of our life. We are literally from one weekend to the next either on that property in the Hill Country or in East Texas, and getting to be able to I guess see the differences between management, to see the different practices, you know, from our family which is multigeneration to his family which has had, I would say, the last two to three generations involved in management over there. You know, there’s a lot of different dynamics involved in that and it is… it’s not something you can cover in a single podcast but I think it’s something that we can talk about over time. Especially as we, you know, have more people on the Land Steward Podcast. So I’m excited to bring you along on that journey as we uncover some of the nuances of what makes land management really about collaboration and creativity.

8:25

So, that’s a little bit about me. I am also taking some of this and bringing it over to the Texas A&M University. I do teach a class called Communicating in Natural Resources over in the Department of Rangeland Fisheries and Wildlife Management – RWFM. This will be my third semester teaching and I’m teaching that class in partnership with Dr. Melissa Shehane, and we get to bring students into this conversation about how challenging sometimes sharing science-based information can be. You know, where are those points of credibility and those points of really smart communication strategies and really just what are the points of smart virtual handshakes, you know? Where we can’t meet every landowner where they are, boots on the ground, but we do have the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service that does do that. So, these students get to come to class twice a week and I share with them some of the things that we do at the Institute and how important the role of AgriLife Extension is in sharing the science-based information, the policies that are in place, and about the partners that are there to help the landowners get from “Point A” to “Point B” and meet those conservation needs and really land stewardship needs. I get… I have chills right now talking about this, because it is such an important part of how we make sure the next generation of land stewards are brought into this conversation early, and they get to see kind of a peek behind the scenes of how some of this stuff happens. And then, my hope is that once they graduate, they get into the workforce – no matter where they end up, no matter if they become a wildlife biologist or maybe an engineer or a landscape architect or wherever they end up – they see that conservation and land stewardship and being responsible for our slices of the outdoors kind of overlaps everywhere. It’s a consideration no matter where you end up. And I want them to know the importance of being able to translate that science and be able to make a long-term impact on the lives that they come in contact with every day. So that’s kind of the purpose of the class.

10:53

And then, lastly, I have for whatever reason decided to pursue my doctorate degree over in the Agriculture Leadership Education and Communication Department, which is kind of where I came from way back when. And to get to partner with some people that I can continue to learn from. I guess, just kind of dig a little deeper and make sure that I’m not becoming stagnant as a communicator and a storyteller myself. So here we go, it’s actually my first day of class today as I’m recording this, and I have lots of different threads running through my life and I am grateful for every single one of them. Front and center right now is creating this podcast and giving you guys a different way to interact with conservation and science-based information.

[NRI Background]

12:00

So, I want to talk to you a little bit about the Natural Resources Institute and give you, I mean just the briefest of most brief overviews of kind of where our work dives in. Because I think month over month we’re going to share a little bit more about who we are and where our programs are. So, we recently had a chance to sit down with Texan by Nature – and if you do not follow Texan by Nature or if you’re not involved, please look ‘em up – they had us, I mean truly digging deep to try to describe who we are and talk a little bit about some of the brilliant minds under our roof. They were doing this interview piece for us. So, sitting down, we though, you know, I guess this is kind of a cool opportunity for us to redefine – I mean not redefine – but put some words on paper about who we are. Cause we are truly running 90 miles an hour all the time, again, all across the United States, trying to meet those conservation needs and fill those information gaps with science as they’re needed.

You know what, if I had to sum it up, I would say we, you know, we’re educators as much as we are still learning. We’re passionate about the future as much as we can be pessimists sometimes about the ways that we feel like conservation efforts might have failed. We’re locals, obviously, as much as we are quite literally international. We’re stewards of discovery and of the landscapes and the wildlife that are out there. We’re constantly trying to make sure that, again, we’re filling those information gaps with science and research but we’re asking the right questions and partnering with the right people.

13:53

I have yet to meet a more diverse crew of just like, sleeves-rolled coffee-drinkers perpetually just leaning into the reality of landscape-scale conservation. And it’s exciting to see how those impacts can come across in both urban and rural communities in Texas and beyond, and oftentimes we talk about the work that we do in Texas being really like a test-bed for many other states across the nation because Texas has so many different ecoregions and different ecological importances? I guess… places. So, we are, I think we have about 120 researchers and scientists, including Extension specialists and policy experts, so that’s exciting to have just that foundation of people who are constantly conservation-minded, stewardship-forward thinking. So, that’s exciting.

We were officially staffed in 2007 and we became more of a grant-funded, both public and private research and extension unit. We, just like Texas A&M, we’re part of that land grant university mission. And as a member of that System our initiatives are founded on this very basic need to enrich Texas with conservation, ag and life sciences knowledge and services to restore those connections among people and ag, food science, and the economy.

The Institute leads with I would say those three main focus areas of private lands, military lands, and wildlife. We have two major, I guess I would say, “hubs” that house our main projects and then the people who lead them and that’s our Private Lands and Trends hub, and then our Military Sustainability and Policy hub. Which, I’m gonna talk to you way more about later. And then all of this, of course, is just continually feeding our education and engagement programs, really kind of helping to serve those communities who are at the forefront of some of these conservation challenges.

To sum it up a little bit, we always say that the Natural Resources Institute is where conservation and applied research meet. We kind of get to be on both sides of, you know, discovering the science and then sharing it and helping people to apply that science where it matters. We work every day to stay ahead of some of the most complex natural resource concerns. But an immense part of what we do depends on again those thoughtful collaborations and the experts in the field. We thrive in this space where we’re able to absolutely, positively impact entire ecosystems together and prove that return on investment for the people who benefit from open space and healthy working lands, especially through those ecosystem services. It’s exhilarating for me personally to see this Institute move when there’s a call, and it’s even more exciting because I get the opportunity to tell some of those stories.

[Resources/Conclusion]

17:22

I would love to invite you to kind of do some homework on your own – in the spirit of the semester starting I’m going to give you a little bit of homework. So, our work focuses especially on connecting landowners and land managers and other researchers, students, obviously, and then of course conservation organizations. And one of our ongoing goals is to make sure research insights end up where they can be used rather than sitting on a shelf somewhere. Even digital shelves somewhere. So we launched this seasonal product called the NRI Sourcebook. The first one came out in 2020 which was really exciting. You can find our latest research and resources all in one place, complete with abstracts and brief demonstrations of what that work means for conservation. So I would love for you to head over to our website which is nri.tamu.edu, and find our latest sourcebook. And you can see some of the back issues just to familiarize yourself with the research and the resources, which sometimes are reports and sometimes are more like “how-to’s” – how to use this science – you can find all of those in each of our latest sourcebooks.

And then you can always follow us on social media – we’re on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter (whatever Twitter is about to be called) – where you can kind of see some of our updates and editorials. And then even, you know, how we’re working with our partners. Social media is this exciting place where we get to connect with people very briefly and give you a really good overview all at the same time of who we are comprehensively.

And then we are on Medium. We use Medium to share our think pieces and editorial and then sometimes some news updates about the Institute. And If you want to you can sign up to get individual articles into your inbox. I really love that experience because I don’t feel inundated with lots of information, but it’s just one single piece from us. Again, you can sign up on our Medium account.

And, I think that’s probably all of the homework I’m gonna leave with you for today. But thank you for tuning into our very first episode of the Land Steward Podcast. From here on out, the plan is to have some really incredible and exciting hosts so you won’t have to listen to my voice constantly. And I’m gonna work a little bit on how to use a microphone and how to sit in a chair and do all the things that my lovely – who I call producer – Abigail Holmes is working to fix in the background to make your listening experience absolutely beautiful. But I would love to hear more from you on what topics you want to hear about, otherwise I’m just gonna keep trucking through until you tell me “Hey we want to hear about this.” And I think any other big issue or hot topic items that you would like to hear about, and like to hear the science about, let me know. You can always send us a note. We’re gonna put shownotes in the bottom of the podcast, but let us know what you think! We’re excited, and I think that’s it. So, this is your host BW, and I am signing off. Hope to hear from you soon.