Some programs focus at the local level while others address national issues, targeting conservation across DoD managed lands; some others are state or regional in scope. Here are just a few examples of the wide variety of DoD conservation partnerships across military services and geographic regions. DoD contributes to numerous partnerships and provides funding sources. Its involvement and support for such programs reflects a shift in DoD over the past several decades from an inward-gazing perspective to an outward-gazing one that proactively seeks partnerships (Li and Male 2020).
The DoD Partners in Flight (PIF) program
The DoD’s PIF program sustains and enhances the military testing, training, and safety mission through proactive, habitat-based management strategies that maintain healthy landscapes and training lands. DoD is an active partner in both the international PIF47 coalition and the U.S. North American Bird Conservation Initiative48. DoD PIF representatives assist installation natural resources managers in improving monitoring and inventory, research and management, and education programs involving birds and their habitats
The DoD PIF Strategic Plan identifies actions that support and enhance the military mission while also working to secure bird populations. These actions can be incorporated into installations’ Integrated Natural Resources Management Plans (INRMPs) and Bird/Animal Aircraft Strike Hazard plans (Eberly and Keating 2006). DoD PIF works beyond installation boundaries to facilitate cooperative partnerships, determine the current status of bird populations, and prevent the listing of additional birds as threatened or endangered. DoD PIF provides a scientific basis for maximizing the effectiveness of resource management, enhancing the biological integrity of DoD lands, and ensuring continued use of these lands to fulfill military training requirements. By identifying species of concern and managing habitats for those species, future listings can be minimized or eliminated.
DoD Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (PARC)
The DoD’s PARC49 program launched in 2009 to provide leadership, guidance, and support for the conservation and management of amphibians and reptiles on DoD lands in ways that help sustain military testing, training and operational mission activities.
DoD PARC was established in response to dramatic declines in amphibian and reptile populations and the potential resulting impact to mission readiness. Under PARC, DoD established a network of installation natural resources managers to communicate and collaborate among each other and with a national network of partner organizations.
DoD PARC is voluntary, proactive, and non-regulatory, and consists of military and civilian personnel. The purpose of this network is to implement proactive, habitat based management that enables readiness by working in partnership with all relevant groups to promote actions that minimize encroachment factors while helping sustain wildlife populations. DoD PARC does this by providing cutting edge scientific information and management recommendations that help preclude or minimize training restrictions due to species endangerments; by providing extensive outreach and education to installation personnel and to the public; and by working closely with all stakeholders, including the test and training communities.
Since its creation, DoD PARC has partnered with over 50 federal and state agencies, universities, zoos, and nongovernmental organizations to prevent species declines both on and off DoD lands. DoD PARC regularly partners with the national PARC network, the nation’s largest and most comprehensive conservation effort ever undertaken for amphibians and reptiles. By working in partnership, DoD is able to leverage knowledge, skills, and resources to alleviate constraints to the military mission, and further conservation and recovery goals for imperiled species. DoD PARC’s focus also includes overseas military lands owned or leased by the U.S. and/or at which U.S. military personnel are stationed.
The need for PIF is driven by ecological imperatives as well as Federal legislation such as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Executive Order No. 13186 (Responsibilities of Federal Agencies to Protect Migratory Birds), and the “military readiness rule” (50 C.F.R. §21.15), which require impact analysis of military readiness and non readiness activities on migratory birds.
47 https://partnersinflight.org/
DoD Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (PARC)
The DoD’s PARC49 program launched in 2009 to provide leadership, guidance, and support for the conservation and management of amphibians and reptiles on DoD lands in ways that help sustain military testing, training and operational mission activities.
DoD PARC was established in response to dramatic declines in amphibian and reptile populations and the potential resulting impact to mission readiness. Under PARC, DoD established a network of installation natural resources managers to communicate and collaborate among each other and with a national network of partner organizations.
DoD PARC is voluntary, proactive, and non-regulatory, and consists of military and civilian personnel. The purpose of this network is to implement proactive, habitat based management that enables readiness by working in partnership with all relevant groups to promote actions that minimize encroachment factors while helping sustain wildlife populations. DoD PARC does this by providing cutting edge scientific information and management recommendations that help preclude or minimize training restrictions due to species endangerments; by providing extensive outreach and education to installation personnel and to the public; and by working closely with all stakeholders, including the test and training communities.
Since its creation, DoD PARC has partnered with over 50 federal and state agencies, universities, zoos, and nongovernmental organizations to prevent species declines both on and off DoD lands. DoD PARC regularly partners with the national PARC network, the nation’s largest and most comprehensive conservation effort ever undertaken for amphibians and reptiles. By working in partnership, DoD is able to leverage knowledge, skills, and resources to alleviate constraints to the military mission, and further conservation and recovery goals for imperiled species. DoD PARC’s focus also includes overseas military lands owned or leased by the U.S. and/or at which U.S. military personnel are stationed.
49 https://www.denix.osd.mil/dodparc/home/index.html
Next Page: Box 6.2: PARC partnership success stories50
Author
David S. Jones, RA IV, Ecologist/Project Manager
Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands
Warner College of Natural Resources
Colorado State University
Examples of conservation partnerships
Examples of conservation partnerships