Urban Wildlife Refuge Program Standards of Excellence (USFWS)
The future success of conservation lies ultimately in our ability to inspire Americans to connect with the outdoors and nature, and to become stewards of the environment. Americans are spending less time outdoors, and are becoming more ethnically and racially diverse. With more than 80% of Americans now living in urban areas, our challenge is […]
Engagement Wayfinder, USFWS
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s Engagement Wayfinder is an orientation to public engagement. Public engagement enables the government to incorporate public concerns, needs, and values into projects and decisions. It is sometimes used interchangeably with other terms like public participation, stakeholder engagement, and community engagement. Central to all of these terms is the idea […]
Lake Superior Collaborative: Enhancing a Partnership in the Wisconsin Lake Superior Basin
Lacey Hill Kastern, USFWS Western Lake Superior Coastal Program Biologist Region 3 Ecological Services Wisconsin
Establishing a Climate Network
Lauren Miller, USFWS Social Scientist Region 8 Science Applications Nevada
Conservation social science: Understanding and integrating human dimensions to improve conservation
It has long been claimed that a better understanding of human or social dimensions of environmental issues will improve conservation. The social sciences are one important means through which researchers and practitioners can attain that better understanding. Yet, a lack of awareness of the scope and uncertainty about the purpose of the conservation social sciences […]
The Tools of Engagement: A Toolkit for Engaging People in Conservation
Conservation can’t happen without people. In the face of environmental issues or challenges, a person or a group of people needs to do something new or different. In essence, to create change, we need to shake up the status quo. The challenge is nearly always the same: how do we, as conservation leaders, achieve the […]
Critical Elements of the Urban Wildlife Conservation Program
For the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Urban Wildlife Conservation Program is defined by four critical elements: community-focused, intentional, inclusive, and collaborative. They are the foundation of our Standards of Excellence for building long-term, meaningful relationships with urban communities, especially BIPOC communities. Each element is essential and interrelated. We measure every action against these […]
Collaborative Conservation: Spectrum of Public Engagement
Explore key concepts and best practices for making collaboration work. Collaboration is a process through which parties who see different aspects of a problem can constructively explore their differences, and search for solutions that go beyond what any one of them might have thought possible. This video was produced by the US Fish and […]
Human Dimensions (HDgov)
The field of human dimensions (HD) includes diverse approaches for using social science to understand and improve environmental policy, practice and outcomes. Human dimensions inquiries strive to understand human traits and behavior and incorporate that understanding into environmental planning and practice. What is HDgov? HDgov is a comprehensive online portal providing easy access to publications, […]
Collaboration and Conflict Transformation in Multiparty Processes
Natural resource professionals involved in multiparty collaborative decision processes face increasingly complex decisions where underlying conflict can undermine their efficacy if unknown or inappropriately addressed. Conflict transformation encompasses managing and resolving conflict by harnessing the energy inherent in conflicts to motivate change and improvement, not only of the decision but also of the institutions and […]
