Bringing Nature to the Human Workplace

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The board of the Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC) recently met at the 79th North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference in Denver that brought together nearly 900 conservation professionals from state and federal agencies and non-profit organizations from across North America.

By embedding our board meeting in the conference, we were able to build new bridges to the agencies and non-profit conservation partners we’ve been working with for many years. By participating in meetings and discussions at the conference, our message and unique approach to delivering conservation within the corporate world was heard.

One of the focus areas of the conference was what the organizers termed the “human dimension”–the people who benefit from, are impacted by, and are potential supporters for natural resources conservation. While wildlife recreation is on the rise in the form of increased numbers of birdwatchers and wildlife photographers, sportsman numbers are in decline for a number of reasons, including a diminished interest in nature in the younger generation. A census of sportsmen found a 46% decline in waterfowl hunters since 1966 while a 2013 study by Kids Canada found that 70% of 13-20 year olds spend an hour or less per day outdoors. These trends are of concern to the conservation community for many reasons, especially when it comes to garnering support for their continued work.

To address these trends, the community of conservationists represented at the conference held panel discussions and plenary sessions about our changing world and their hopes to engage new populations and new generations in conservation, whether as hunters or fishermen or as hikers or birdwatchers.

One of the causes of the decline in numbers seen by the conservation community is increasing urbanization that leads to a growing physical and psychological distance between people and nature. As the distance grows, nature becomes different and separate from humanity. It becomes a destination to visit, requiring plans, driving directions, maps and possibly entry fees and licenses.

A great way to reduce this distance is to bring nature to people by giving people the opportunities to engage with nature at their workplace. Considering that the adult workforce spends more of their waking hours at their place of employment than in active or passive recreation activities, workplace nature programs present a simple and efficient way to bridge the nature gap and address the separation.

Workplace based conservation programs are at the core of what we do at WHC. With more than 800 conservation programs that connect people and nature at their place of work, WHC has identified the following factors that make good, successful nature programs at workplaces across the world:

  • Support at all levels: Employee-lead conservation projects can happen without support from management but these projects only truly thrive when leadership at the facility and at corporate HQ offer encouragement and recognition for the idea of habitat projects on their lands and also work to direct organizational resources and energies in support.
  • Employees should follow their conservation passions: When a conservation project aligns with the interests and passions of the team charged with implementation and monitoring, success will be automatic. But the converse is also true; if a wildlife team is interested in a specific conservation objective like building native bee habitat but management or conservation partners direct the efforts elsewhere, excitement around the project will wane, connections to it will weaken, and ownership of it will vanish.
  • Recognize early success: When a new wildlife team is formed and ready to start a project, it is important that the team sees success early. This will be a challenge if a complex project requiring delayed gratification is chosen for implementation–restoring a wetland can take decades, removing invasives can be a never-ending task, and creating habitat for rare and declining species depends on many external influences that are beyond the reach of the team charged with implementation. Planting a wildflower meadow brings colors and birds in the spring, a pollinator garden provides rewards by attracting butterflies and bees during the season and tree plantings can provide employees with instant gratification that grows along with the tree.

Other factors that build success and engage employees as environmental stewards include adding an element of competition (think photo contests and wellness challenges); paying attention to physical placement and aesthetics; providing interpretive materials in the form of signs of trail brochures; and creating well-organized events around the project that broaden involvement beyond the core team.

By engaging working adults in meaningful conservation activities where they spend much of their waking hours, we start to bridge the nature gap, halt the decline, and truly bring a human dimension back to nature.

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Connecting to Enhance WHC Certification

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In early February, the Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC) convened an impressive group of stakeholders to kick-start the design phase of an enhanced certification program that, when launched, will incorporate contemporary conservation and education initiatives to ensure and incentivize the best conservation projects and education programs across WHC’s membership.

This meeting was attended by representatives from federal agencies including Interior, Agriculture, State, Education, Defense and EPA. Non-profit partners Pollinator Partnership, Defenders of Wildlife, The Conservation Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and Monarch Watch also participated. Representing the WHC corporate membership were employees from ExxonMobil, Waste Management, Bridgestone, BP, and others.

A number of themes emerged from this meeting but every breakout group circled back to the theme of “connections” and the challenges and opportunities for making them happen. It seems that the unique nature of the conservation and education projects developed and delivered by the members of WHC offers many chances to connect. Here are some of the unique opportunities discussed at the meeting:

Connecting across boundaries: The desire to transcend boundaries—to work “across the fence”—surfaced throughout the day. In the US, that means connecting conservation work being conducted on private land with that being done on public lands, whether held by the state or federal government. On the global level, many WHC members have operations outside the borders of a single country and can use their global operations to impact wildlife and environmental health across these borders. WHC member PPG Industries’ work connecting monarch habitat on two of its properties in Mexico and Pennsylvania is a prime example of using projects in different countries to benefit a single species and connect education efforts in support of a species that is in serious decline across its range.

Connecting to Corporate STEM goals: Many of WHC’s members invest in STEM education to create the scientifically literate workforce necessary for their future operations. These investments support the work of large efforts advancing STEM on the national stage. Through their work with WHC, members can use their lands to promote STEM education by providing hands-on, relevant STEM opportunities to learners of all ages. For example, Waste Management’s El Sobrante Landfill and Wildlife Preserve in California provides an opportunity for children to learn the science of landfill operations and management of wildlife including rare and recovering species.

The Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC) convened an impressive group of stakeholders to kick-start the design phase of an enhanced certification program.

The Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC) convened an impressive group of stakeholders to kick-start the design phase of an enhanced certification program.

Connecting within industry sectors: When the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association (NRMCA) wanted to connect its members with a common approach to biodiversity projects, it partnered with WHC to develop a biodiversity toolkit. This toolkit provides operators of ready mixed concrete production facilities with examples of projects that enhance biodiversity with little or no impact on operations. The toolkit gives the operator guidance on starting a project and working towards certification. By creating a common starting point for facilities across the country, and beyond, WHC creates connections within this industry sector.

Through these connections, and many more, WHC believes that its members’ efforts amount to an outcome that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Building on this stakeholder meeting, we will continue, over the next 12 months, to explore these connections further. We plan to take the conversation across the country and beyond and, with our government and NGO partners define, formalize and internalize these connections, translate them into actions and projects that any corporate member can implement on their property for high quality conservation and education outcomes.

For information, contact Margaret.

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Wildlife in Winter: Now You See Me…

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It just snowed (again) out here on the East Coast, so it seems only fitting that I wrap up our “Wildlife in Winter” blog series by talking about how some animals camouflage themselves in the winter to blend in with snow.

In the warm months, species like the snowshoe hare sport a brown fur coat that helps them to easily blend in with the bare ground, making it harder for predators to spot them from far away. In the winter, however, their brown fur would be highly visible against the white snow, making them vulnerable to predation or more visible to their potential prey.

The solution? Change the color of their fur!

Obviously, animals can’t go to a hair salon for a dye job like you or I can. So a number of mammals shed their brown summer coat and replace it with a thick coat of white or mostly-white fur that blends in well with snow. This is most common in more northern latitudes where snow is on the ground throughout the winter.

The ermine – which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago – is a great example of a mammal that goes white in the winter to both avoid detection by its prey under the snow, as well as avoid detection by larger predators like hawks. Other mammals that grow white fur for the winter include the arctic fox, arctic hare, and snowshoe hare.

Similarly, some birds such as the ptarmigan also molt their darker summer plumage in favor of white feathers each winter.

Do you have any animals on your land that change their fur or plumage to blend in with the snow each winter? We’d love to hear your stories or see links to photos you took in the comments below!

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