Introduction
What are Sustainability Solutions ?
When we conserved and improved 2.5 million acres of habitat for pheasants, quail, and other wildlife last year, we also provided diverse sustainability benefits like enhancing biodiversity, stewarding water resources, sequestering carbon, increasing climate resilience, and improving soil health. We also secured more than $114 million dollars for upland wildlife conservation (with $97.6 million – an impressive 89% of funds raised – going directly to our nonprofit mission) and worked with more than 37,000 landowners to support voluntary implementation of wildlife habitat improvements that in many cases also supported the economic sustainability of farmers who are critical stewards of our natural resources. The growing investment of corporate resources, government grants, and other support in sustainability efforts and rising public expectations for action create new opportunities to increase support for our Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever teams and programs to provide upland habitat as a sustainability solution.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Interested in supporting our work? Explore ideas for opportunities to help and Ways to Give.
For more information on ways to build sustainability partnerships with us, contact Brent Rudolph – Director of Sustainability Partnerships, at BRudolph@PheasantsForever.org.
Biodiversity
BIODIVERSITY
Grasslands and savannas are every bit as important to the health of the planet and the life it sustains as rainforests and coral reefs. And unfortunately, they are also every bit as fragile and threatened. In fact, North America’s grasslands are one of the most imperiled ecosystems in the world. Nearly 70 percent of our original grassland range is gone. Grasslands have been destroyed by being converted to agriculture or residential and commercial development, and the unchecked expansion of trees and shrubs into grasslands also displaces the original species of plants and wildlife. Twenty-six states include bobwhite quail on their list of Species of Greatest Conservation Need – species with low or declining populations in need of need conservation action before they become even more rare and costly to restore – based on the loss of habitat in the central and eastern U.S. driving an 81 percent population decline over the last 50 years.
Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever conserve and restore native prairie and savanna and create quality upland habitat on farms, ranches, and forest lands in ways compatible with these working lands and landowner interests. Creating and sustaining this habitat, removing and setting back the advancement of trees and shrubs where they threaten these landscapes, and making space for pollinators and grassland birds and other wildlife not only benefits the pheasant and quail populations that are central to our mission, it also restores and sustains biodiversity, or the “biological diversity” of our planet.
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“Grassland birds have suffered the biggest bird declines of any terrestrial biome since 1970... due to habitat conversion, tree and shrub encroachment, and pesticide applications.”
— NABCI, State of the Birds 2022
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CLIMATE SOLUTIONS
Many programs begun in years past to improve soil health and address soil loss and impaired water quality from erosion and runoff now provide important tools to combat the challenge of climate change. The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) originated from the Soil Bank Program of the 1950s to help farmers counter soil erosion. The Farm Bill of 1985 officially established CRP and introduced numerous changes, including extending the landowner’s commitment from three years to anywhere between 10 and 15 years to allow vegetation more time to produce desired benefits. That vegetation also stores carbon, both above and below ground. The growth of Pheasants Forever’s regenerative and sustainable agriculture programs have expanded options for ways to store carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Enrolling low yielding acres in CRP and other conservation programs keeps carbon in the soil reduces emissions, and decreases quantities of fuel, fertilizer, pesticide, and herbicide required, which helps farms increase profits and decrease their carbon footprint.
CRP is currently at its lowest enrollment since 1987
The official launch of CRP in the 1985 Farm Bill helped reverse a pheasant population decline across much of the core range, but enrollment caps and challenges competing against high commodity prices minimized or reversed the wildlife and climate benefits of CRP. From 2007 to 2019, the loss of nearly 10 million CRP acres just within the pheasant range counties contributed to a 22 percent decline in the U.S. pheasant population index– AND an annual loss of 7.3 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emission reductions and carbon sequestration. These carbon benefits equate to the emissions of 1.6 million passenger vehicles every year, which is more than the number of vehicles that were registered in half of individual U.S. states in 2020. Addressing climate change and ensuring widespread and highly connected habitat to improve the resiliency of wildlife populations to impacts of increasingly volatile weather requires robust conservation programs.
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“USDA is committed to investing a range of resources to implement [Working Lands For Wildlife] Frameworks, including traditional Farm Bill and... funds from the Inflation Reduction Act... wildlife habitat conservation in... grasslands and sagebrush can also provide important carbon storage opportunities and climate-mitigation benefits.”
— USDA, Historic Investment in Conservation, Wildlife, and Communities
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Working Lands Climate Corps
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WATER STEWARDSHIP
Prairies, savannas, and habitat restored on farmland through practices like those supported by the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) protect and improve water quality in multiple ways. Compared to ground cover on typical farmland or in urban and residential areas, natural vegetation slows down the flow of water after rain or irrigation, which helps intercept sediment, nutrients, and other contaminants before they enter waterways. Areas enrolled in CRP experience 95 percent less nitrogen and 86 percent less phosporus leaving fields in runoff and percolation.
Conservation buffers – 30 to 120 feet wide strips of permanent vegetation along streams, lakes, and wetlands – provide pheasants, quail, and other birds with much needed nesting and brood-rearing habitat bordering both crop lands and water, and also reduce pesticide and nutrient runoff from agricultural land and soil loss and sedimentation of streams and rivers. The impacts and severity of flooding can also be reduced by conservation buffers. During flood events, riparian buffers and wetlands can store and absorb excess water and slow runoff. This minimizes local effects and can reduce downstream flooding.
Without these benefits of upland habitat, high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus can enter waterways and cause algal blooms that lead to die-offs of fish and other aquatic life. One of the most dire examples of these effects is the larger than 5,000 square mile Gulf of Mexico “Dead Zone” that is the result of nutrient runoff across waterways that feed into the Mississippi River. Beyond impacting fish and marine life, toxins and bacteria produced by some algal blooms can also be harmful to humans who come into contact with polluted water or consume affected fish or shellfish. Even at low levels, nutrient pollution of ground water can harm human health of the millions of people in the U.S. who depend on it as their source of drinking water.
By slowing surface flows, storing floodwater, and filtering water, buffer strips, field borders, and whole fields maintained in natural vegetation can minimize impacts of increasingly severe rain and flooding events and promote infiltration of clean water into aquifers to recharge sources of water for drinking and agriculture. In these ways, upland habitat contributes to healthy, functioning communities – both for people and for wildlife.
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WATCH - SORGHUM, WATER AND WILDLIFE: Conservation in West Texas
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PROSPEROUS COMMUNITIES
More than two-thirds of the land in the contiguous 48 states is privately owned. These lands are critical for providing a sufficient quantity and quality of wildlife habitat, and they are also critical for producing much of the country’s food and fiber. Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever provide support to owners and operators on working lands of farms, ranches, and forest land to keep them healthy and productive – both economically and for wildlife value. To be implemented at meaningful scales, sustainable solutions for working lands must be economically sustainable, and should provide meaningful benefits for a healthy environment, people, and prosperous communities. Our teams and partnerships are focused on providing quality upland experiences and habitat in ways to meet these needs on working lands.
A smaller proportion of land in the United States is in public ownership, but hunting, outdoor recreation, and tourism on these lands produce outsized benefits for the economy, job opportunities, and quality of life in surrounding communities. We coordinate projects and volunteer efforts on publicly-owned and publicly-accessible land to improve habitat, support these recreational uses, and benefit surrounding communities and residents.
Build a Wildlife Area® is Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever’s permanent habitat protection program delivering strategic, fee-title acquisitions to conserve habitat and increase public hunting access. The program strives to create functional landscapes that support wild, sustainable populations of upland birds and other wildlife, while providing natural resources and community benefits. Our acquisition strategy provides solutions for the nation’s most complex sustainability issues including improved biodiversity, climate solutions, water stewardship, and rural economic development – while simultaneously prioritizing maximum impact for pheasants, quail and associated wildlife.
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WATCH – Habitat & Access: Montana’s Wildcat Bend North Acquisition Project
WATCH – The Balance: Soil Health & Habitat
WATCH – More Quail Per Bale
“This unique partnership [with Quail Forever] illustrates how industry and conservation groups can work hand-to-hand... [and] echoes the sustainability goals the U.S. cotton industry has set for itself.”
— Dr. Jesse Daystar, Chief Sustainability Officer, Cotton Incorporated
Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever Farmers of the Year
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Interested in supporting our work? Explore ideas for opportunities to help and Ways to Give.
For more information on ways to build sustainability partnerships with us, contact Brent Rudolph – Director of Sustainability Partnerships, at BRudolph@PheasantsForever.org.