Local Conservation Partnerships

The Playa Lakes Joint Venture (PLJV) believes that conserving habitat at the level necessary to sustain bird populations requires lasting local support, collaboration and leadership. It is through these local conservation partnerships that the majority of the habitat work takes place.

We have invested considerable funds and resources in helping partners increase their capacity to collaborate locally to conserve habitat. Much of this investment has come through the Capacity Grants Program. To date, Capacity Grants have helped create and support nearly a dozen local conservation partnerships resulting in more than 160,000 acres protected, enhanced and/or restored for wildlife value.

The PLJV defines local conservation partnerships as groups of resource managers, landowners, community leaders, conservationists and others that work collaboratively to conserve the natural resources in their area — be it playas, Lesser Prairie-Chickens or everything in between. Partnerships can be formal — complete with bylaws and boards of directors — or informal, so long as they possess certain attributes that PLJV believes will lead to successful and sustained conservation:

• Connections to landowners and local agency representatives
• A structure for collaboration
• Awareness of conservation needs
• Access to habitat management options and information
• Knowledge of and ability to access programs and funding
• Ability to fund-raise
• Ability to self-promote
• A plan with measurable goals
• Ability to understand and implement a biological plan
• Ability to self-evaluate against stated goals
• Long-term collaboration on a variety of conservation issues

The PLJV highly encourages states to apply for Capacity Grants funding to develop such groups. The intent of the program is not to support individual local conservation partnerships indefinitely; we want to help get these groups off the ground, provide them support and tools to conserve habitat, help develop their ability to sustain themselves, and then set them free.

Some of the groups that the Capacity Grant Program has assisted include the Prairie and Wetlands Focus Area Committee in southeast Colorado and the Platte River Basin Environments in western Nebraska. There are many other partnerships operating independently of direct PLJV involvement that are also achieving incredible results — such as the Comanche Pool in south-central Kansas and the South Platte Focus Area Committee in northeastern Colorado. PLJV works to engage these unaffiliated groups as well by promoting their conservation successes, providing access to our planning, and offering other habitat conservation resources and tools.

There are many grassroots alliances of landowners, resource managers and community leaders working to conserve wildlife habitat throughout the western Great Plains. If you are interested in getting involved, contact one of the Local Conservation Partnerships in your area or learn how to start a local conservation partnership.