[Introduction by Max Chapman]
Thank you, Max. I am honored to be with you tonight.

Once in a while, America comes across an idea that is indisputably brilliant. Twenty years ago, we came up with such an idea with the creation of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. I am pleased that later we will recognize President Reagan for being a driving force behind the establishment of the foundation and for signing the law that created it.

The foundation is built upon a legacy that is as old as our country - the legacy of people working together to accomplish purposes that are beyond the power of any individual.

Alexis de Tocqueville, the famous 19th century social commentator, noted that the willingness of Americans to form voluntary associations to work for the greater good was one of the greatest attributes of our country. It differentiated us from the rigid structure of the Old World, where social and class barriers discouraged such associations.

Americans, of course, don't need de Toqueville to tell us this. The ability to form associations and partnerships has long been psrt of our national DNA. When you needed a barn built, you didn't go out and hire contractors and subcontractors. You called your neighbors. Everyone dropped what they were doing for a day and made a community celebration out of a barn-raising. What one family alone couldn't accomplish in months, the community as a whole was able to do in a single day.

This is the legacy that the great conservationist Aldo Leopold tapped into when he wrote "A Sand County Almanac" in the late 1940s. Leopold saw that there was work to be done on the American landscape. As a nation, we had been blessed with a great treasury of natural resources, including abundant wildlife. Leopold recognized that we were at risk of squandering this treasury.

At that time, we had experienced the vast deforestation of the eastern United States in the early part of the 20th century, the wanton slaughter of waterfowl and other bird populations by market hunters, and the ravages of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. We needed to move quickly to conserve and restore the riches of our land and its wildlife.

Leopold recognized that there was a role for the government in doing this. But at the same time, he saw that there was a risk that America would seek to have the government do the whole job itself by acquiring lands or regulating their use.

He called instead for a new land ethic rooted into the American tradition of people working together to accomplish tasks that neither they nor the government could accomplish alone. It would involve the combined efforts of all citizens, each applying a caring hand to the landscape -- in backyards, at places of work, on farms and ranches, and in local communities.

In this new land ethic, landowners and people in communities across the nation would be citizen-conservationists. Restoring and safe-guarding the health of our land would be the national equivalent of a barn-raising. The government might help provide the wood, the nails and the paint, but the people themselves would build the barn.

At the risk of pushing this analogy too far, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation is the model of conservation barn-raising when it comes to fulfilling Leopold's vision. You provide the means whereby thousands upon thousands of individual Americans, corporations, local communities, conservation groups, and others join forces to conserve and restore our land and its wildlife.

Through your international programs such as Partners in Flight, you take the vision to other nations, bringing them into partnership with us to conserve wildlife that cross our borders.

The numbers are impressive. Since its inception, the foundation has joined in partnerships with more than 2,200 federal and state agencies, non-governmental organizations, and local and tribal governments. You've partnered with all 50 states, more than 350 local or tribal entities, and more than 1,500 non-governmental organizations, ranging from local watershed organizations to cattlemen's groups; from resource conservation districts to national non-profits.

Partners in Flight is an excellent example of how the foundation fosters partnerships and innovation to solve complex conservation challenges. In this case, the challenge is the long-term decline of neotropical migratory birds that journey from Canada to Central and South America each year.

When biologists began to realize that many of these species were in serious decline in the early 1990s, the foundation moved quickly to build a framework that brought government agencies, corporations, and non-profits together to address issues like habitat loss and illegal poaching.

It effectively primed the funding pump to get money to worthy projects on the ground while federal agencies inched through their budget cycles.

I am pleased that during my tenure at Interior, the Fish and Wildlife Service has negotiated the North American Bird Conservation Initiative with Canada and Mexico to complement Partners in Flight.

Through such programs, we are working with forest landowners in central America on sustainable forest practices that will not only conserve wintering habitat for birds but also provide long-term income for the landowners. We are also promoting shade-grown coffee, which I am pleased to report is available for purchase in the Interior Department cafeteria.

Most of our win-win partnerships are on a more local level, such as the Malpai Borderlands Project in Arizona and New Mexico. The project involves 14 partners, including federal, state and local agencies, academics and non-profits. Since 1993, the partners have worked with ranchers to conserve and restore wildlife and its habitat through planning, education, and innovative rangeland management practices.

Every federal dollar has been matched by at least three non-federal dollars. Amazingly, the project has been able to manage or restore close to 11,000 acres for every $1,000 in federal funds. If only the whole government could get that kind of return on the taxpayer's investment.

Let me apply this model to a controversial area-endangered species. President Bush's new cooperative conservation initiatives, like the Landowner Incentive Program and the Private Stewardship Grant Program, introduce the important element of cooperation into our tool-kit for protecting endangered species.

Here is an outstanding example of this approach. Last may, we awarded a Private Stewardship Grant to The Nature Conservancy and five small towns in Long Island, New York, to protect piping plover nesting areas on private beachfront lands.

The group calls itself "FEET": the Five East End Towns. If you have never been to this area, it is suburban with private homes that line the coast. Long Island supports the second largest breeding population of piping plovers on the Atlantic Coast.
This delicate habitat is in the middle of houses, people, and development.

In the 20 years since the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation began, a quiet revolution has been transforming conservation. The Foundation has been at the forefront.

This revolution is based on a simple realization. When people of diverse views sit down together to address conservation issue they can often find common ground. At least they're more likely to agree than if they paint each other with stereotypes or trade inflammatory statements through the media.

The evidence is mounting-through success stories like the work of this Foundation. More and more people are understanding that local, cooperative partnerships can accomplish great things for conservation. We see hunters and anglers sitting down with energy executives and ranchers. We see environmental groups working with chambers of commerce. In most of the successful examples, a community faces a tough problem, like a stretch of ugly and degraded riverfront, or a conflict between a declining lumber mill and forest protection. I have heard that lots of groups go through the same process. People sit down with lots of distrust and animosity. They start talking and realizing there is some common ground.

There may be potholes in the road but we should emerge with a true shared vision. From that vision arises enthusiasm. This accomplishes more than a federal notice and a comment rulemaking can-by tapping into people's love for the lands that surround them.

Their habitat is in the middle of houses, people, and developments. Nests are especially vulnerable, since they are right on the beaches where thousands of people want to enjoy the waterfront. When I went to Long Island, I learned that landowners are working with volunteer birders to identify nesting sites.

When they are found, the landowners agree to fence off the nesting sites so people won't accidentally trample them. The communities educate their citizens about the importance of respecting the fencing, and giving the birds some space.

When I met with the local citizens, people were enthusiastic. Imagine what the reaction would have been, though, if we had used solely a heavy-handed regulatory approach, and forced landowners to quit using their own beachfront property. Instead of the joy people felt as we watched the nesting birds through spotting scopes, they would have felt resentment.

Instead, the Five East End Towns organizations will use Interior's $80,000 grant to monitor and protect 55 beach-nesting bird sites and rare coastal plant habitats throughout the five communities. They are finding ways to restrict predators like fox, gulls and crows. They are building a community of plover-lovers.

This is exactly the kind of project President Bush had in mind when he proposed the creation of these grant programs. We empowered the citizens to restore habitat on their land and to protect and recover endangered, threatened and at-risk species.

This is just one example of Interior's Cooperative Conservation Initiative. For the past several years, we have been expanding our cooperative grant programs, and encouraging partnerships across the country.

In fact, the Interior Department has provided more than $1.3 billion in grants to states, tribes and private landowners over the past three years. In his 2005 budget, President Bush has asked for $507.3 million for these cooperative conservation programs, a 270 percent increase since 2000.

Under the North American Wetlands Conservation Act Grant program, our partners have contributed more than $695 million in matching funding over the past three years, restoring or enhancing more than 14 million acres of wetlands. President Bush has proposed to increase these grants by more than 40 percent in Fiscal Year 2005.

These grant programs tap into the same spirit of innovation that has made the foundation so successful. No one knows the land better than the people who live and work on it. Whether you want to restore a wetland, bring back native plants, restore a stream or other riparian area, eradicate invasive species or come up with a conservation solution that has never been thought of before, the best thing we can do is to enter into partnership with those closest to the land.

These programs are about partnerships. NFWF is a contributor to so many of these partnerships and the Foundation helps find the best projects to make sure taxpayers money is used well.

I could continue for some time describing the tools we have added to our tool box to support citizen stewardship and partnerships.

For 20 years, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation has put together the coalitions and built the bridges that have made such innovative partnerships possible. I commend you on your achievements. All of us at the Interior Department look forward to working with you in the coming years and decades.

So let me conclude by simply saying - congratulations. Well done. Keep up the good work. Thank you.

Award Presentation (at the conclusion of your speech)

Now it gives me great pleasure to join with Max Chapman to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation with a presentation of the Chairman's Award.

The Chairman's Award is the Foundation's highest accolade and is given in recognition of outstanding leadership in the conservation of America's natural resources.

This recipient means a lot to me personally. I have spent 3 years working for President Reagan. In his eight years in office, President Reagan proved to be a true leader in promoting conservation in America. As I mentioned earlier, he was a driving force behind the creation of the foundation and signed the law that established it.

His many other accomplishments include signing into law more wilderness protection measures than any other President in history. He also signed the Coastal Barrier Resources Act that protected more than 700 miles of undeveloped shoreline around the country.

He initiated an unprecedented effort to restore and enhance facilities at our national parks and wildlife refuges. He took steps that left the nation's air and water cleaner than when he took office.

This evening's award is an original sculpture entitled "Covey Rise." The artist is Grainger McKoy of Sumter, South Carolina.

It gives me great pleasure to ask Congressman Wayne Gilchrest to come forward to accept this award on behalf of President and Mrs. Reagan.