Episode 3 - The Endangered Species Act (Part 2) at the 50th Anniversary Symposium in Texas
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[0:00]
[Intro Music]
Introduction:
Hi, and welcome back to the Land Steward Podcast. This is your host, BW, and I am again super excited to be back in the booth to bring you to the behind-the-scenes recap of the Endangered Species Symposium that took place at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center just a couple weeks ago. As you know, our last episode we had Shelby McKay with the Natural Resources Institute on to talk a little bit about the relationship between private landowners in Texas and the Endangered Species Act and what opportunities are there for collaboration, for flexibility, and really relationship building so we can make sure that landowners are connected to the resources that exist for and through the Endangered Species Act.
So, the symposium, as you know from our previous episode, was really meant to mark this year as the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act, which is one of the most influential pieces of legislation that has impacted conservation in the US. So really, I guess the purpose was to reflect on the successes and document some of those lessons learned from the past 50 years. Which in my opinion is absolutely critical as we think through kind of this like changing of the guard or the idea of passing the baton to the next generation of land stewards and really just stewards of sound science and the decisions and resources that can then be shared and continue to be extended to private landowners who are at the heart of some of the conservation work. Or not some of - all of the conservation work that's done, especially through the ESA.
So not only were we coming together to talk about the lessons learned and to reflect on the successes of the last 50 years of the Endangered Species Act, but it was also to really look forward to the next 50 years and take that private land stewardship lens and to look ahead to prepare the next generation of conservation leaders.
So, speaking of, as Shelby shared with us in the last episode, she was a part of, is a part, actually still, the James G. Teer Conservation Leadership Institute. So, the symposium was organized by the fellows of that Teer Institute, which we also refer to as kind of a cohort, which was sponsored by the Texas Chapter of the Wildlife Society. So, the mission of the Teer Cohort is really to ensure the future legacy of really well-trained conservation leaders by providing sort of a professional training in leadership skills and contemporary conservation issues, especially for today's wildlife biologists and conservation professionals. The Institute has always been very outspoken in their belief that there's a current need for a Texas-based leadership program that not only meets the needs of the biologists and the scientists and the researchers that are in the field right now, but also for conservation professionals who are there to translate that science and to also, you know, work with policy and work with landowners in different ways to help extend that science and make sure that it's being used and that it ends up in the hands of the people who can apply that research in science. They also focus on some of the more unique issues associated with Texas private lands.
As you know, Texas is a private land state and that is hugely impactful. It changes every aspect of the conservation conversation, and it changes how we approach policy and how we approach extension especially and making sure that we're aware that the 250,000 private landowners in Texas have the resources they need to maintain those healthy open spaces and the habitat that's so critical for wildlife across the state.
One of the founding goals I would say of the program is that the cohort members should be able to have knowledgeable conversations, they should be able to understand conservation concepts and have a really, I guess, well-rounded understanding of contemporary conservation issues so that they can be successful in helping to kind of manage Texas wildlife and Texas natural resources. So, the program includes kind of this team-based product, I guess like component of their experience being a part of the year-long cohort and this symposium is what came out of that. So it is one of the I guess six or seven different projects that I've had an opportunity to witness unfold and develop organically through this Teer cohort of young professionals who have really, they come together specifically to find a solution to something that either has not been solved yet or to facilitate conversations that are not happening in the conservation space, which is really unique, I think, for a young professional society.
So, with that being said, the symposium again was hosted at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. It was beautiful. I could not imagine a better setting for this type of event, type of coming together in a gathering of the past 50 years of the ESA and what the future of policy and conservation and land stewards looks like, the leaders of conservation in the space. So it was, you know, as you can imagine, absolutely igniting for me. It was encouraging. It was exhilarating. The event and the venue, I think, I just, I could not praise the cohort any more for choosing that venue and for really being thoughtful about the location and what, I guess, what environment these kind of conversations should be taking place in.
And thinking about how the cohort set up the day, they did an incredible job, I think, of facilitating what could have been an agenda of speakers you know in this lineup of people that we had an opportunity to listen to but they really turned it into a really awesome space for connection and conversation. I mean everything from hosting a breakfast in this space with this you know beautiful hill country view and then leading us into the opening session in the Wildflower Center’s kind of vaulted ceilings, sort of sloped auditorium. It was just really beautifully done and sewn together really well.
[7:40]
Introductory Remarks:
The Natural Resources Institute's director, Dr. Roel Lopez, who I have an honor to just witness kind of you know, his connectivity and the way that he's sort of, he has a history with every person in the room, which is just phenomenal to be able to have so many years of experience in this space, connecting with people on so many different levels, but to watch him work and to watch him shake hands with people in the room is motivating and it's, it's exciting for me to see those relationships that I've been around for so many years just as fresh as they were on day one because they have truly built working relationships knowing that together they can achieve landscape scale impacts really being at the heart of some of those connections there.
So, Dr. Roel Lopez opened the session for us and quickly kind of framed up this opening conversation with Gary Frazer, who was the Assistant Director for Ecological Services with US Fish and Wildlife.
And Gary's, I guess, lead into our first panel session, and stopped me in my tracks. He opened with a comment and a description of the Endangered Species Act and he said, “The ESA has teeth and it has a really broad reach,” and that sentence alone thinking about the way that the Endangered Species Act has had to evolve over time to be able to meet the needs of private landowners, of land stewards and managers and the wildlife that depend on that habitat was a really impactful opening for me. And he talked a little bit about just, you know, the overall goal is to, was to look at some of those big changes that have happened over time and to view the Endangered Species Act as an instrument of change. And he also kind of nodded and acknowledged that those changes don't come easily. The Endangered Species Act is a shared tool and sharing a tool that has that much power can be complex. It's multifaceted and it requires everyone to come to the table with a willingness to connect and build a working relationship that benefits everybody. He talked a little bit about his firm belief in the Endangered Species Act and continued to kind of remark on the powerfulness of that tool for species conservation, which is, again, another thing at the center of why it was created and why it was written 50 years ago.
[10:29]
Session 1 – The Past:
The first session really kind of focused on the past, I would say, so as you might have guessed, and we kind of talked about this a little bit on the previous podcast episode, was that we really wanted to look at the past, the present, and the future.
This first panel was made of a couple of really interesting people, including Jimmy Bullock, Douglas Wheeler, and Peg Romanik. So, Douglas Wheeler was one of the original authors of the Endangered Species Act and I honestly cannot comprehend what that might have been like for him to be sitting at that panel table. And the story that I'm told, a little bird told me, that one of the members of the Teer cohort kind of just threw out an idea during some of their planning sessions and they were like what if we could have one of the authors from the ESA from the original document written in 1973 come to the panel, come to the event. What would that look like, is that possible, do we have anyone who knows anyone, who knows somebody, who could make a call? And somehow, they found Douglas Wheeler's phone number and called him up out of the blue and told him about the event, and he agreed to attend, so.
I do have a little bit of information about Douglas Wheeler, he worked exclusively with Natural Resources and Environmental Issues throughout his career. He did join the Department of Interior in 1969 where he served as the Assistant Legislative Council and then Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife, and Parks under Assistant Secretary Nathaniel Reed, during which time he participated in the drafting of the Endangered Species Act with Reed and “Buff” Bohlen and testified in the Congressional hearings while that document was being drafted. So, I just, I couldn't imagine being Mr. Wheeler getting that phone call from a young man asking if he would attend this, you know, this moment of reflection and event to kind of take a look back at the last 50 years and then to try and see forward and see what the next 50 would look like.
Peg Romanik, who was also on the panel, was, I would say, oh my gosh, just listening to how candid she was, was really refreshing. She is retired from also the Department of Interior, and she was essentially a lawyer for the DOI, which I, again, cannot comprehend what that must have been like, but she spent 30 years of her career working on conservation, and in particular the ESA, specifically legal issues with ESA. She did say for decades her area of expertise was specifically section seven of the ESA, but she also focused on section 10 issues with literally hundreds of Fish and Wildlife folks, private parties, other governmental agencies, and public and private attorneys to help implement the Endangered Species Act. So that's just, you know, another perspective that I don't know that we could have had this panel without somebody like Peg there.
Jimmy Bullock, okay, so his title, he's a Senior Vice President of Forestry Sustainability and Resource Management for the Research Management Service, which is an LLC. He had this incredible perspective in contribution, I think. Just in coming from somebody who's outside of Fish and Wildlife Service. He did say that, you know, I guess he spoke a lot on the fact that he got to oversee sustainable forestry, environmental policy and programs, and advocacy issues on like forestry or on resource management Service managed timberlands in the United States. So, he also led environmental, social, and government initiatives for resource management services, specifically on timberlands.
So, some of the things that came out of this session, actually right out of the box, something that I loved that we wrote down was that they opened with, “We wouldn't be able to do any of this without private landowners.” Going back to this testament of the willingness of private landowners to collaborate and to build relationships for the sake of species conservation, absolutely would not be possible without landowner cooperation and collaboration. One of the other remarks that Doug had during that panel was that the most remarkable development over the last 50 years for the Endangered Species Act was that it's durable and it's flexible and it allows for the creation of landscape-scale conservation.
And Pat chimed into that to say that even in her 30 years, there had been this. amazing evolution from this idea of “There's a hammer and everything's a nail,” to “We're gonna make it work and we're gonna learn to collaborate and find solutions that is to the benefit of everyone, and to make sure that we're having really thoughtful, careful, and thorough conversations with our partners and with landowners.” And she mentioned just how dynamic the Endangered Species Act truly is, and oftentimes you'll hear our director, Dr. Roel Lopez, talk about the value of living documents. Documents, strategies, ideas that do live and breathe and adapt to circumstances and to the needs of landowners and to stewards. That is so critical as so many things around us are changing constantly, from industry to landscapes, even down to wildlife and the way that we look at economic bottom lines for private landowners.
Some of the other things that are changing constantly, and that is so critical as so many things that came out of that panel as they were sort of answering questions both from the audience and from the Teer cohorts and from the session moderators.
So, one of the questions they asked was “What was the climate like when the Endangered Species Act was created?” And Doug spoke up and said, you know, at the time, there was definitely a growing public concern for protecting endangered species and their habitat. He also mentioned that Earth Day in 1970 was a milestone. It kind of started to... to have an impact on mindsets at that time and really brought to focus this idea of ecosystem protection and biodiversity. And even though it was still bringing some of those conversations to the forefront, it was still entirely single species focus. So, there wasn't a whole lot to this holistic understanding of how ecosystems work and function. That was kind of enlightening to kind of go back to that time and to get kind of recalibrated for what that must have been like in the room for them.
One of the other questions was “What challenges were faced in implementing the ESA on private lands?” and I don't know that anyone would have enough time to go over probably the many problems and some of them they made you know I guess over the last 50 years you kind of start to forget some of those things but I think they did a really good job of capturing some of those conversations. Pat did include that at the time Texas had a huge challenge, I guess, from a legal perspective in terms of monitoring because of the state laws against it without permission, which still in some way can come about today, I think, and she said that it was harder to escalate decisions on private lands than it was on federal lands, which also kind of makes sense thinking about that timeframe. And she said that there could still be tweaks to be made to make regulation easier on private lands even today.
One of the last things that she left us within that panel, was you can't put blinders on and get caught in litigation. You have to instead ask, “What do we have in common?” And that definitely reminds me of some of the other recent-- conversations that we've had in the Institute on the principles behind Conservation without Conflict and understanding that there's value in conflict because it brings to light things that need to be worked through, the things that still require solutions, and how you move through that conflict together really defines the success and the outcomes. Comprehensive outcomes, holistic outcomes, and not kind of singular outcomes, I guess. So that was kind of, that was cool for me to hear from her.
The next question they asked in this session was “How important have private lands been to the implementation of the endangered species?”
And Jimmy Bullock, I think, did a really good job. of kind of rounding out this conversation and saying, "Building relationships and building trust is everything—absolutely everything in the bottom line to the Endangered Species Act." And it's been hugely influential building relationships with private landowners just in shaping how the Act is implemented today.
You know, and again, that's that just kind of underscores the idea that through relationships and through outreach and through handshakes and open gates is how you're going to move the needle for conservation impact. We talked about in the last episode something we try to reiterate a lot from the Institute is that most of the time if there is a land landowner who has habitat, key habitat, for a critical species no matter the stage that they're in, truth be told it's that way for a reason and the habitat probably doesn't need to be changed. And if we change it, it may not be the critical habitat that it is. So, you know, ideally we leave the landowner to continue managing the way that they are and acknowledging that, and acknowledging the stewardship and the investment that landowners put into their land, and the thought, again, the investment in so many different ways that landowners have poured into their land. The passion, the grit, the blood, sweat, and tears creates the habitat that’s there.
So listening to Jimmy just talk a little bit about how hugely influential those conversations and relationships have been in shaping how the Act is today was really cool to hear. He said that there's, you know, some of those relationships have also kind of shaped the perspective, you know, change from this kind of burden, I guess, of regulation for endangered species and into an opportunity to protect species. Which is another, I would say, unique perspective and point from them.
The last question of this session was, “If you could change one thing about the Endangered Species Species Act, what would it be?” And Mr. Bullock piped up and said, "I might make it more difficult to have frivolous lawsuits." And I would have to second that. I think that one of the things that kind of came through in some of the conversations was about some of the time that is put into... lawsuits and maybe how that time could be reallocated to other things that could potentially be more productive for everybody involved.
And Mr. Wheeler kind of ended our session with, you know, the Act at this point has failed, in his opinion, to provide resources commiserate with the threats that we face. And I think that as we look into the next 50 years, that could be something that we see as a priority, you know, as the younger generations and new conservation leaders are coming into this space, they need to be asking what resources align with the challenges that are happening right now, today, and what else could we supply to private landowners that would truly incentivize and support them to do the work that they're already doing and the work that they want to do?
So, thankfully in between sessions we had a little bit of this break time, and you'll hear in some of these upcoming interviews. I did have opportunities, really fun opportunities, and if you know me, I was quite literally weaving in between rows with my laptop and my microphone to capture some of the thoughts that were happening in the room specifically for you guys. I wanted you to hear the energy that was going on. I wanted you to hear from some of the people within the Institute, within the Teer cohort, and especially the panelists. So, I was lucky to be able to grab a couple of people for you to hear from, just to hear another voice, first of all, and to hear from people who are much more brilliant than I am, who have been more directly involved in the development and the implementation of the ESA from lots of different perspectives.
So, this first one that - I'm gonna call him my first victim - is Mike Marshall, who is with the Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute. I have had the honor of working with him for six going on seven years now. And Mike, when I first came on led our Endangered Species Act Species Status Assessment Team, and now they're working, they're still working on SSAs, but in a, I would say, a more comprehensive way. So, his work directly informs the decisions for species listing and delisting for the Endangered Species Act. He is brilliant and one of my favorite people to have really dynamic conversations with. So here is Mike.
[26:09]
BTS – Mike Marshall:
BW: Okay, so what’s something interesting that you feel like you took away from that first session?
MM: Yeah, so, I mean first of all, all the experience up there on the stage in that first session was pretty cool and overwhelming and one of the things that I noted, was that Doug mentioned how everything was very single-species focused, right, when the law was written, but that he thought the ESA had this inherent flexibility that can lead to this landscape conservation that we all talk about all the time. So I’m really curious to see how that develops over session 2 and 3, to see where we can go from here.
This next voice might sound a little bit familiar for those of you who listened to episode 2 of The Land Steward Podcast. It is Ms. Shelby McCay. She was actually running in between buildings at the time, and she saw me coming from a mile away, and she knew what my expectations were. Which I think I have built a reputation for - people might see me coming and they’re going, hmm, Brittany has something in mind. So, Shelby was gracious enough to kind of stop and give me just a couple seconds of her time to talk a little bit about what's going on and how it feels to be in the room with some of these people.
[27:35]
BTS – Shelby McCay:
SM: I mean it just feels absolutely incredible. I can’t believe I’m actually hearing from these people that were there from the start and just their experiences and how they’ve moved the needle on conservation and just how much it’s changed. And it makes me really excited to see how much it’s going to change in the future. I can’t wait.
BW: Yeah, me too. Thanks Shelby!
SM: Yeah!
[27:54]
Session 2 – Present:
Okay, so in session 2, which again was focused more on the present, what's happening right now with the Endangered Species Act, and who are kind of the players that are highly involved or from different organizations who are all working together now to collaborate. So, this session was moderated by Lindsay Martinez, who is with the East Foundation, who I have also had the privilege of working with for a couple of years.
I mentioned that I also in my free time, not really free time, it's very focused time, get an opportunity to teach the students in the Department of Rangeland, Wildlife and Fisheries Management, and Lindsay Martinez was one of my graduate students last semester, and she's just, she's an absolute joy to work with and to be in the classroom setting with. We've also done quite a bit of work together in the last two years regarding the reintroduction of the ocelot in South Texas so it was it's just very cool to see a lot of these people in the room just listening to these conversations but especially listening to Lindsay moderate this next session focused on present day and what's going on with the ESA.
So, Terry Anderson who is with Conservation Equity Partners which is an LLC, Ryan Orndorff with the Department of Defense and Natural Resources program, Brian Arroyo who's retired US Fish and Wildlife Service, Dave Tenny who is with the National Alliance of Forest Owners was also on that panel so very dynamic, diverse set of people who've kind of sat on all sides of this table of the ESA, came together to really kind of describe what it's like right now.
And I love the way that they opened this session with an Aldo Leopold quote, which I have heard Dr. Roel Lopez recite a few times because it is so impactful, it's so succinct, and so clear to what's truly happening. And the quote is, "Conservation will ultimately boil down to rewarding the private landowner who conserves for the public interest." Just taking that in for the state of Texas and for all the landowners who are managing the vast majority of the state, and acknowledging what that means when the healthy open space lands are taken care of and conserved, and all of the ecosystem services benefits that come along with that conservation and what that means for everybody else outside of the land.
I mean hugely impactful. Terry said that that one of the improvements he would say in the present time is that everyone's actually having conversations now between landowners, organizations, and government and that seems so simple and so straightforward but has not always been easy and has not always been achieved… hasn't always been just as exciting for everybody to come to the table and have an amicable conversation.
Dave did chime in and he talked about how important it really is to reward landowners, and to really kind of regard that as a culture shift and how to kind of reward this culture that… a culture of trust, a culture of working together and, you know, trying to ask the question, what does everybody want and how can we bring everyone together? What would benefit everybody? So, I thought that the mention of this culture shift toward collaboration, you know, cause thinking about… we have one land and we're all kind of responsible for it in different ways. That was pretty impactful for me to hear.
Bryan Arroyo did talk a little bit about, you know, again, kind of this idea of a culture shift, where you have to build relationships and instead of resisting against assurances for landowners, making sure that those assurances are there to allow landowners to keep doing the good management that they're already doing.
And he brought up a really good point. He said of anybody that we've ever worked with regarding the ESA, you've never heard a landowner say that they want to lose a species or that they want to degrade habitat. Never ever have you heard that from a private landowner or private land steward. And private landowners have been doing the good work all along. So, we know what can they do to get out of the way and provide the right resources and make sure that that management is for the betterment of conservation and for wildlife species.
One of the challenges that he did talk about and something that we talk about a lot at the Institute and in our conversations with partners is that the biggest challenge right now is landowner turnover, in his words. And we talk a lot about this generational shift, a pendulum swing of kind of this, this new or the younger generation coming up. You know, if I wasn't connected to the resources at the Institute, and by resources, I mean people. People, experts, to help me kind of understand what an undertaking it is to manage the property. You don't know what you don't know. And one of the things that Brian Arroyo in this panel brought up was that it is so easy, the easiest thing, probably one of the easiest decisions in some of the... the younger generations and lifetimes to be able to say yes to selling the land. And with that, every decision, every hour and implementation of management that went into that property goes with it. So obviously that definitely resonated with me, just listening to him describe what that challenge is like for private land stewards, especially.
He did mention that, thankfully, even though the next 50 years is really going to look very different for the state of Texas, he said the Endangered Species Act is tremendously flexible, but extremely broad. It does need a little bit of adjustment, he thinks in terms of climate adaptability and what the changing landscape looks like in response to growing populations. I mean, and when I say growing populations, I mean exponentially growing populations and just what is the carrying capacity of the state and the land and the water resources and I… you know, from most people's perspective, we've hit that capacity and gone over it. So, what do we do over the next 50 years and how does the ESA become a part of supporting those systems that are in place?
One of the kind of really cool questions that was asked during that session was, "What are your favorite examples of the Endangered Species Act successes?" And Dave shared very quickly the gopher tortoise, which I talk a lot about in my communications class, and every single one of my students walks away from the class calling in a gopher turtle for some reason. So, I need to work on my communication skills and make sure they walk out of the class knowing what these species are called. Bryan talked about the black capped vireo in Fort Hood and the management buffers that they were able to establish with landowners and really what that relationship looked like between military and private land stewards. Ryan talked about the desert tortoise, and Terry talked about, you know, a little bit about breaking down silos and the barriers between landowners and agencies. And he said, you know, conservation used to be a lot more caustic and it's heading now in the right direction, so it was very hopeful and they talked a little bit about just having solutions that are a lot more accessible than they used to be. So that, again, going back to this idea of this is about the present and what's happening.
And I'm excited to introduce you to the next two people who allowed me to snag them.
One of them is Dr. Roel Lopez. And that was a really awesome moment for me. as somebody who has watched him kind of you know build these connections in these relationships and as someone who is a mentor for many people students and professionals alike to get to see him move through the room have really brilliant conversations and to be able to continue fueling those relationships that we have within the Institute and the Department with the people that were in the room.
[37:30]
BTS – Roel Lopez:
RL: I think the big takeaway for me today has been the fact that the ESA is flexible, and how we apply it should be adaptable, and what that means is it allows us to sort of grow with the Act as it adapts to the changing environment, and so forth. And one key critical ingredient to that is just the development of relationships as part of that, willingness to take risks, leadership, and so forth. So, those are some key takeaways, I think, from the conversation this morning that we can apply moving forward.
BW: Yeah, brilliant ideas. Thank you, Dr. Lopez.
RL: You bet.
The next interview that you're going to hear, thankfully, is with Mike Leahy who is the Senior Director of Wildlife Hunting and Fishing Policy for the National Wildlife Federation. And not to use the word "victim" again, but he definitely ended up sitting at a table near me, and I saw an opportunity, so I took it. So, Mike was incredible. He definitely wanted to hear a lot about the podcast and what we were doing. doing. So, he was super patient with me as I was trying to have a better understanding of his role in the Endangered Species Act and how he would contribute. It was exciting to hear him in the panel and I'm going to talk a little bit more about some of the things that he shared in the future panel, but here's a little bit from Mike just as he's allowing me to snag him and ask him some probing questions about what it's been like being at the symposium.
[39:15]
BTS – Mike Leahy:
ML: Well, I appreciate that, thank you. I work with the National Wildlife Federation, and I work on wildlife policy for them, and from our perspective private landowners couldn’t really be more important to conservation of wildlife and biodiversity. Pretty much any landscape you look at, private lands are part of the connective thread of the landscape - if not the bulk of the landscape, right? It depends on where you are. But even where there’s a lot of public lands, if you want wildlife moving across the landscape and through the landscape, they’re generally gonna have to be crossing private lands. And so, having private landowners welcoming those wildlife, accepting those wildlife, supporting those wildlife, is really important. A lot of times that requires relationships with the private landowners, you know, lack of fear, some trust. But you also need programs that can support private landowners and incentivize them for that work. So, we try to focus on some of those policies and programs at the national level that provide funding and support, technical support to private landowners wanting to do good things for wildlife.
BW: I love that. I love how that connects back to this idea of going beyond that conversation, even beyond building that relationship, but how can we help them deliver on their goals as well, regarding conservation. Thank you, Mike for joining us on The Land Steward Podcast.
ML: Thanks for the opportunity.
[40:50]
Session 3 – The Future:
So, into session three and our final session before this sort of I would say very cool interview style that the panelists got to do at the very end of the symposium with Ed Roberson with Mountain and Prairie Podcast who we also talked about in episode 2. He recorded an entire panel for you guys to listen to so I'm gonna drop a link in the show notes so you can go and listen to that once it's live, but he's such a casual guy like he's such an incredible interviewer and brings people into that conversation. You want to kind of lean in and hear from him and kind of just watch the magic that he produces as he's asking questions. He does, you know, I think he does a really good job of capturing the complexity of the ESA.
So, this final session, session three, really focused on the future. And the dynamics here on this panel are really cool. One of the first speakers up in this panel is Chad Ellis who is the CEO of the Texas Ag Land Trust, or TALT. And TALT works very near the NRI office in San Antonio, so I get to hear a lot about the collaboration. And every once in a while, when I'm on a, like, a video conference with our director Roel Lopez, I'll see Chad Ellis in the hallway in the background walking over to the TALT offices. So, it's very cool to be able to work so closely with so many of our partners and collaborators.
So, Chad led a lot of the conversations on this panel, and he had next to him Mike Brennan who is with the Natural Resources Institute and who I have I really enjoyed so many of years of conversations with Mike. His insight I would say is unmatched in thinking about the policy conservation space and beyond that the mentorship space. He thinks a lot about the ways that we can work better for young professionals and students, and he values their time and their perspective on things like nobody else that I've ever interacted with. So, it's, I mean, it's really been an honor to be able to work side by side with Mike on many different projects. And he's such an easygoing guy for the job that he has, so it's a testament to, you know, just what brilliance looks like in a lot of different ways.
The third person on this panel was Mike Leahy, who you just heard from in my little side room conversation. Again, he is with the National Wildlife Federation. And then the last person on this panel is Gian Basili, who's with US Fish and Wildlife Service.
So, Chad kind of opened this session with a little bit of discussion on the importance of data and land data and how to take that data and understand what programs landowners need to be incentivized to be able to take advantage of resources and to be able to collaborate in this space. And one of the questions, the follow-up questions to that was, “What's the role of nonprofits really in bridging that gap and thinking about the many different collaborators who are on the community level who kind of see every day and know firsthand what the challenges are that landowners are facing?” And Mike contributed kind of a really cool perspective and he just said non-profits have a huge influence and they're often separated from agencies and discussions like this but there needs to be more overlap. So, in the future prioritizing bringing in people who are connected to the community, he thinks in his mind, and I think the panel agreed, would definitely do some good and just promoting collaboration and helping everybody to have a really well-rounded perspective on what landowners really need.
The next question was, “What are some of the new or underutilized tools for recovery?” And Gian had some good points here, he talked a little bit about the need for private lands for the recovery of species more now than ever before. And again, going back to this land fragmentation and the risk of losing land. Again, going back to the pendulum swing of young landowners kind of coming up and having some really distinctive choices to make for their land and their priorities. He said the relationships need to move from this transactional idea to more of a transformation, I guess the idea of transformation and collaboration and trusting, and trying to figure out how we do that consistently over and over again with landowners. He did talk a little bit about working to be sincere, even from an agency's perspective about pursuing outcomes that are mutually beneficial, you know, and I think for the most part what he meant by that is how do we speed up timelines, how do we make things easier, and how do we really come to the table with some benefits for private landowners especially. He talked a little bit about this idea that we could shift perspectives from listed species needing to be thought of as more of an asset instead of a liability, which was a really, that was a unique perspective to think about. He does think that conservation banks are underutilized, which is something to explore and something we may talk more about. And then a new idea would be maybe payment for ecological services, and that is a new idea, it's a developing idea and something that you might have seen a little bit of coming from the institute and the department is this idea of grazing land ecosystem services and what that really looks like. Again, a conversation for another day um… highly complex.
And the next question was, you know, “How can we make sure the ESA stays current and addresses issues like climate change and climate adaptability?” And Mike Brennan always has some really brilliant ideas and contributions to conversations. He talked a little bit about actively pursuing preemptive conservation to prevent listing. One example was the Gopher tortoise. He said, you know, with climate change comes habitat change, which is a conversation that needs to be continued and consistently had. He said, you know, how do we think about species that migrate to you in the future? What about species that are unlikely to persist? You know, and he said the Act doesn't distinguish between species that are likely or unlikely to survive. It's kind of in triage, you know, that's what the ESA is. And in the context of the ESA, he said if we don't look at these questions, we operate by default. So, we must think about the unthinkable. What are the ways that we can think to the future and project into the future? And find out how to, I guess, create solutions that are not so much out of... just response of the situation dwindling already, but how can we be proactive?
And I will leave you with the last question of this session before they went into their interview with Mountain and Prairie Podcast with Ed Robertson. “What was the advice for a young professional? From Mike, John, and Chad, Mike said, "Don't be a detractor. The Endangered Species Act needs more friends, it needs more positive and encouraging energy and diversity." Which I think could apply really anywhere that you are, but again, don't be a detractor.
Gian said, "You get more done when you build trusting relationships, so pursue new opportunities to do good, even if they seem impossible.” Talk about a foundational message for the Endangered Species Act, pursuing something that seems impossible and continuing to pursue it and being as clear as possible about that being an opportunity is kind of cool to think about.
Mike also added that you know recognizing existing tools are good examples but not blueprints. Another foundational message for the Endangered Species Act, it's flexible, it's adaptable, and there's room for change, there's room for improvement. Think of tools as they are, and they're good examples, but also have a little bit of creativity, I think with his underlying note there.
And Chad left everybody with the quote that kind of played on this idea that complacency kills, so you have to have different mentors and different people in this space to help broaden your perspective going back to this idea if you don't know what you don't know. So that rounded out the third and final session focused on the future of the Endangered Species Act.
I do have one more side interview that I want to share with you that is with Lindsay Martinez again from East Foundation and I was so happy to have been able to grab her. Again, you have to visualize. I am walking around with my laptop and my microphone, and I am trying my best to listen to what's going on in the room, to absorb those conversations, and to find people who we could bring into the conversation so you could hear a little bit of that energy that's happening, and from the voices who have been so profound through the entire symposium.
[51:11]
BTS – Lindsay Martinez:
LM: Thank you, Brittany. For me, it was really interesting to hear from Douglas Wheeler who was one of the lawyers who wrote the text of the Endangered Species Act back in 1973, and hearing him speak and just chatting with him a bit on the side, he talked about how a lot of the programs that we’re using right now to conserve species are things that were never envisioned in 1973, and it’s really only been possible because the ESA is flexible, and has given people room to create new projects, programs, and innovations. And so something that I said to Doug is that maybe come the 100th year of the ESA, we’ll have a lot of programs to look at that we’re not even envisioning today, in 2023. And then I’ll say that I was really interested to hear Gian Basili from the Fish and Wildlife Service in Florida talk about some tools being used by the Southeast Region there as well as the state agency to really get landowners to work on Florida panther habitat conservation and to provide incentives for those folks to do conservation on ranchlands. So, with the East Foundation looking at private land stewardship for another special endangered cat, the ocelot, I think some of the ideas he brought up and some of the programs they’re getting underway in Florida could be of use to us in Texas.
BW: Absolutely. And that’s just amazing for you to have the insight to take what you heard from them and go “How can we apply this right now? Today?” Again, going back to this idea of building relationships and going beyond the conversation with these landowners to actually make landscape scale conservation impacts. That’s very cool. Thank you for talking with us and the podcast.
LM: Thank you!
So, thank you for tuning in, thank you for listening to this behind the scenes. This was an incredibly memorable experience for me, and I know for everybody else in that room and it's one of those situations where you have an opportunity to be inspired and then to take that inspiration and continue pushing it through. Oftentimes we have these, you know, temporary moments or ignitions I guess and that fire in your belly that you know tells you this is good you want to try to push forward and then you leave that setting and some of that inspiration gets lost in the day-to-day but these conversations and the last 50 years of the Endangered Species Act is a testament to taking that fire in your belly, that passion that you have for safeguarding wildlife and at-risk species and creating healthy resources for open space land and habitat through private landowners and acknowledging what that requires, and having the grit and the fortitude to continue forward in the face of multifaceted challenges and highly complex issues that, I mean, truly leave no room but to have collaborative conversations and to be willing to do that, which is difficult sometimes.
So, again, I was inspired. I'm so excited to be able to share this with you, thank you for listening and I hope that you've enjoyed this entire kind of recap of the event. The next episode that we have coming out is kind of impromptu I'm actually deviating from our editorial calendar simply because a request landed in my inbox from a private landowner and I am thrilled to bring you along for episode four of the Land Steward podcast. So, thank you for listening. This is BW and I am signing off.
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Maybe.