The Future of Waterfowl II Workshop, held at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia on September 26 and 27, 2017, was a gathering of wildlife and land management professionals to help chart a path forward for waterfowl and wetland conservation in North America. The purpose of the 2017 Workshop was to assess progress toward achieving the goals of the 2012 NAWMP Revision, and to use that and other information to inform the 2018 NAWMP Update – What still needs to be done? Do we need to adjust our focus? – but also to try and look 5 to 10 years ahead, identify upcoming challenges, and position the waterfowl management community to address them.
The workshop Approach and Objectives included:
- Celebrate. The North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP) and waterfowl conservation enterprise more broadly is a conservation success story and model…and the foundation on which we are building.
- Future-focused. The success of NAWMP is due to a forward-looking culture. As part of the FoW2, we will explore long-term trends to inform decisions in the next few years.
- Not just the 2018 Update. Although the FoW2 will provide critically importance guidance for the 2018 Update of the NAWMP, the purpose of the workshop is not just “writing the plan.” The FoW2 will explore issues and seek solutions that affect the entire waterfowl management enterprise and some will fall beyond the scope of the NAWMP.
- 2012 Goals. How do we maintain a vibrant community/enterprise to achieve the goals of NAWMP? An enterprise capable of achieving NAWMP goals through support of NAWMP directly, but just as importantly through support for broader conservation action embodied in the Blue Ribbon Panel types of efforts.
- Participant involvement throughout. The plenary (all participants together in 1 group) sessions will involve participants through use of TurningPoint technology and through brief interludes of discussion and Q&A.
- Wisdom paired with innovation. Design and facilitate the Workshop in a way that acknowledges and seeks to balance the “wisdom of the crowds” along with the opportunity for innovation. In other words, innovation may emerge out of “minority” views.
- Inspired. As a result of attending the FoW2, participants should feel inspired about the ability of the waterfowl community to influence future conservation outcomes.
- Compelling actions. Most importantly, we want to identify compelling actions that can be taken by the community to achieve those outcomes.
The Synthesis Report was released January 29, 2018 and is available below, along with all the FoW2 Workshop-related files.This report is a synthesis of main results obtained from the breakout sessions only, and you should still expect to see a full report on the entire workshop in the near future. For questions or comments regarding the FoW2 Workshop and Synthesis Report, please contact the FoW2 Co-Chairs: Bob Clark (bob.clark@canada.ca) and Paul Padding (paul_padding@fws.gov).