Welcome. I am pleased — in fact I am delighted – to join so many of this Nation’s conservation leaders. Gathered here today are ranchers, sportsmen, teachers, business executives, and community activists. We have conservation leaders from States, Tribes, and federal agencies. Your backyards stretch from Alaska to Florida; from Michigan to Texas. Some of you hale from our great metropolises; others come from rural outposts.

Together, you reflect the upwelling of citizen stewardship in this Nation. You mark a coming of age of cooperative conservation.

The phrase “cooperative conservation” has a “bumper sticker” ring to it. (In fact, we even have an actual bumper sticker printed for this conference!) But cooperative conservation is more than a phrase. The great 20th century conservationist Aldo Leopold envisioned conservation springing up in backyards, on farms, at workplaces, in communities. He anticipated a backyard conservation ethic alongside the legacy of conservation made possible through our national parks, wildlife refuges, and other public lands.

Cooperative conservation is, of course, not new. Some of you here today have been collaborating on environmental solutions for years. You understand from experience the limits of conflict-oriented approaches to environmental problems, and the possibilities that arise when people begin working together.

Twenty years ago, while I was Associate Solicitor at the Interior Department, I began to see what government and private parties can accomplish if they work together. In the mid-1980’s, just a handful of California condors remained in the wild.

We were horrified as the reports came in that first one, and then another of the majestic birds, had died from various causes. The decision about what to do was filled with emotion. Some said the birds should be allowed to stay free and die out with dignity.

From the opposing perspective, a partnership emerged to take action. Our Fish and Wildlife Service, the Los Angeles Zoo, and the San Diego Wild Animal Park brought in the birds and began a captive breeding program as the bird hovered at the brink of extinction.

That partnership has borne fruit — or, more specifically, borne condor chicks. Four years ago, at the Ventana Wilderness, I had the great privilege of participating in the release into the wild of five of these condors.

A partnership that has grown to include the Peregrine Fund, the Ventana Wilderness Society, and the World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho, made this venture possible. These huge birds, with their ten-foot wingspans, under the right conditions can glide for miles with one flap of their wings. I will never forget the awesome sight of condors soaring over the Grand Canyon. Now, over a hundred magnificent condors fly once again above the mountains and cliffs in California and Arizona.

Cooperative conservation is not new, but, like the California condor, it is spreading its wings and taking flight. It is gaining momentum as America’s citizens seek ways to supplant conflict with cooperation to fulfill their environmental goals. It is flourishing as we strive for partnered problem solving that blends environmental, community, and economic goals. It is blossoming as we aspire for environmental excellence that springs from innovation, engagement, and on-the-ground insights.

Last week I had the wonderful opportunity to visit the Nisqually River Wildlife Refuge near Olympia, Washington. The Nisqually River Council brings together the Nisqually tribe, which has lived by the river and fished its salmon for centuries, farm families who have worked the land for generations, city dwellers who enjoy the nearby outdoors, as well as professional biologists and government officials. In 20 years of working together, they have restored significant amounts of habitat and improved the prospects for salmon.

At a ceremony honoring those who have contributed to the Nisqually success was one man who has furthered Pacific salmon recovery, but who has also had a profound impact on environmental protection at the national level. His career embodies the evolution of cooperative conservation. That person is former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Bill Ruckelshaus.

Bill became the very first Administrator of the EPA in 1970. Think about what a challenge he faced at that time.

Our rivers were in such a dismally polluted state that the Cuyahoga River had recently caught fire. Few automobiles had emission control devices; leaded gasoline was still a problem. Smokestacks belched pollutants and smog blanketed our cities. Environmental issues at that time were fraught with conflict. Some people thought environmentalism was just an unnecessary expense and a passing fad.

Environmental protection circa 1970 was all about conflict. It was a real struggle to set the direction of the country. Ultimately, our nation chose the path of greater environmental protection, and the transformation has been dramatic. Our air and water are far cleaner than they were 3 decades ago.

Since those turbulent times, Bill Ruckelshaus has become a recognized leader in creating an atmosphere of collaborative problem-solving. Thanks to his efforts, there are a growing number of places where people from different constituencies can collaborate to resolve their disagreements.

Today we have the foundation for effective cooperation. There is a broadly shared consensus in support of clean air and clean water and preservation of scenic landscapes.

There is a growing recognition – and this conference is the first major recognition by the federal government – that the trend toward cooperative conservation amounts to a significant conservation movement. It is a distinct new era in environmentalism.

Today, just as we ponder sustainability in other environmental contexts we should consider the institutions that lead to environmentalism sustainable for the long term. I submit that, on both sides, cooperation and win-win solutions are more sustainable than alarmism or winner-take-all conflicts. This new approach is the most effective way to go beyond enforcing minimum standards to reach for higher levels of environmental achievement.

Cooperative conservation is common sense conservation by people from every walk of life. It is rooted in collaborative decision-making, shared governance, and bottom-up action. It comes in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes it takes the form of an individual rancher or farmer, working with state and federal agencies to protect imperiled species. I learned recently of one California rancher, Tim Koopman, who has turned parts of his ranch into a wildlife sanctuary. He has improved stream corridors to protect habitat. Funds from the Fish and Wildlife Service have helped him build better stock ponds, providing water for his cattle and habitat for the threatened tiger salamander.

Sometimes cooperative conservation covers vast swathes of land. Three-quarters of a million acres in Maine’s North Woods are being protected by an agreement reached in 2001 between the Pingree family and the New England Forestry Foundation.

That ambitious effort, involving the work of more than 100 partners, will help conserve 100 lakes and ponds with 215 miles of shoreline and 2000 miles of stream and river shoreline.

Increasingly, we also see large, landscape-scale endeavors that cut across land-ownership boundaries to stitch a conservation whole out of otherwise fragmented parts. In Maine, the Duck Trap River Coalition is working along miles of the river to restore habitat for Atlantic salmon. Snowmobile enthusiasts, farmers, conservation organizations, local communities, and state and federal agencies are transforming abandoned gravel pits into vernal pools. They are replanting native grasses along stream banks. They have set aside conservation easements on private lands and created special recreation corridors.

Outside Tucson, Arizona, the Bureau of Land Management has teamed up with the local community, ranchers, off-road vehicle users, and others to implement a land management plan that covers federal and other lands. A special governing board oversees implementation of the plan using adaptive management to monitor on-the-ground results.

Nature itself knows no boundaries. Cooperative conservation offers a way to keep intact a medley of land ownerships, while creating a context for conservation across boundaries through partnerships. Sometimes, these partnerships involve single projects that have a beginning and an end.

But, increasingly, we are seeing complex partnerships that are generating new forms of governance. They are breathing life into federalism through creation of compacts, contracts, or new governing boards that oversee adaptive management plans on federal, state, and local lands. They are bringing citizens into the federal governance equation through advisory boards and cooperative agreements. They are advancing what Steve Goldsmith, former mayor of Indianapolis, has called “network governance.”

These efforts are making a difference — a big difference. Through Interior’s Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program alone, we have protected, restored, or enhanced nearly two million acres of wetlands, prairies, and upland habitat since 2001. That’s enough land to equal the size of Delaware. And those results are from just one small federal program.

Through another, our North American Wetlands Conservation Fund, Interior and some outstanding partners protect as much as 600,000 acres of wetlands each year, contributing to the President’s goal of increasing wetlands by 3 million acres over 5 years.

Interior’s colleagues at the Department of Agriculture, EPA, Commerce, and the Defense Department all augment this tally of conservation results through their partnerships. Representatives here today from each of these federal agencies demonstrate that even old federal agencies can learn new tricks – like listening instead of dictating — like focusing on results instead of writing standardized rules.

The real story, though, lies in the details of each place — and the people lending caring hands to so many landscapes. On Long Island, New York, I was impressed by the enthusiasm of bird watchers, The Nature Conservancy, and local communities working to protect endangered piping plovers. These birds nest right in the sand on prime beach locations, in direct competition with people wanting to enjoy some sun and surf. You might think that fencing off nesting areas would cause some real resentment. But instead, through community education efforts, aided by Fish and Wildlife Service private stewardship grant funds, the birds enjoy the status of treasured local mascots.

Here on the urban fringe of St. Louis, the Air Force has teamed with the county, the local port authority, state and other federal agencies to transform a federal property into a commercial center alongside restored wetlands and natural resources.

These cooperative conservation endeavors are neither isolated nor incidental to 21st century environmental progress. Instead, they are its linchpin.

A few months ago, I had the exhilarating experience of taking part in the announcement that the ivory billed woodpecker, long thought extinct, had been seen. The search for the elusive bird had become something like the quest for the Holy Grail. One Cuban biologist observed that: “The Ivory-bill is a messenger of the old days from the great forest that covered our land. It lives between science and magic.” The magic, of course, is the wonder in us that this grand bird evokes, but it is science, alongside on-the-ground conservation, that will give this bird its second chance.

Those on-the-ground efforts are a testament to the power of partnerships and cooperative conservation. The Nature Conservancy, dozens of local farmers, timber companies, federal and state agencies, ornithologists at Cornell University and other institutions are bringing together the science, the land, and the caring hands that may — we hope — sustain this bird and the cypress and tupelo swamplands in which it makes its home.

Each of these examples of cooperative conservation tells a distinct story—a tale of individuals alone and together helping this Nation conserve lands and protect our environment. These examples are distinct, yet they share some common characteristics that, I believe, define cooperative conservation.

What we have underway with these experiences in cooperative conservation is a discovery process — a spontaneous search for answers to four questions that have been under-explored as the Nation has built the institutional foundations of environmental protection.

First, how can we better foster innovation? Cooperative conservation provides a context for creativity — whether experimenting with mitigation banking to protect gopher tortoises from suburban expansion near Mobile, Alabama, or development of new technologies to reverse stream bank erosion, as we see along the Duck Trap River, or creating a water marketing system to conserve scarce water resources in the Deschutes Basin of Oregon.

Second, how can we better draw upon local insights and information so that management decisions take into account local circumstances? With their familiarity of local places, citizen stewards have knowledge of time, place, and situation — the details that make one location different from another and put boundaries on what’s doable. Instead of one-size-fits-all rules coming from Washington, local folks can apply the “on-the-ground, in-the-dirt, everyday, nose-to-the grindstone” knowledge that improves resource management decisions. Awhile back, I had the chance to celebrate completion of an agreement between a private landowner and Big Bend National Park. The agreement allows some public use of private land along the Lower Canyons stretch of the Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River.

The landowner, Paul Silber, made this agreement possible. Yes, his commitment was important. But, above all, it was his ability to help the park service understand the issues and suggest satisfactory solutions to them that brought success. Through the agreement, private landowners will provide public access to the river. Cooperative conservation also encompasses the answer to a third question: how can we inspire people to join hands as citizen stewards? I believe inspiration and incentives lie at the heart of human action. Incentive approaches have proven their power. One Department of Agriculture incentive program, the Conservation Reserve Program, has signed up over 800,000 farmers and ranchers who have enrolled 35 million acres nationwide in efforts to restore forests and other natural habitat.

Other programs have shown that incentives don’t have to be large. Just covering the cost of replanting native vegetation may be enough.

Inspiration is sparking the desire to care for the outdoors. A few years ago, I visited the Cargill salt ponds near San Francisco, which are being restored into a wildlife refuge.

I saw a group of third graders sitting at a picnic table near the marsh. They were studying owls and what they ate — by dissecting sterilized owl droppings. As they found bones of rodents and frogs in these owl pellets, they were thoroughly absorbed. The camera crews that accompanied me got within inches of the kids’ faces, yet the youngsters were oblivious — captivated, instead, by the secret world unfolding before them. Whether through this kind of educational experience or by directly taking part in conservation actions, we deepen interest in conservation that, in turn, motivates enduring action.

As we move into this 21st century, increasingly, we face one more question: how can we generate more integrated, less fragmentary, decisions? The environmentalism of the past three decades, which centered on a suite of issue-specific statutes, often generated piecemeal decisions and inconsistent or conflicting mandates.

Protection plans unfolded for one species at a time; or air-pollution plans took shape in isolation from plans to reduce water pollution. In contrast, consider cooperative conservation, where partners are putting all the pieces together in a set of coordinated landscape or place-based decisions.

As we contemplate cooperative conservation, many people ask: don’t we still need regulation? The choice is not either/or. Unfortunately, for example, there are still some people who are so irresponsible they will engage in activities like midnight dumping of toxic wastes or poaching endangered species. For them, strong enforcement tools are needed.

Instead, our choice is whether we lead with coercion – or whether we reserve it for those situations where coercion is actually needed. Those assembled here today know we can lead with cooperation. Building upon what the participants in today’s conference have proven can be accomplished through collaborative approaches; I am pleased to announce today that the Administration will soon be submitting legislation to further the potential for cooperative conservation.

We want to continue the federal government’s evolution into a valuable partner for your efforts. We hope to keep on furthering the expansion of citizen stewardship, and our legislation will be designed to provide additional tools for long-term federal involvement in this effort.

Today, you will hear about exciting partnerships, the faces and places of cooperative conservation. We will take a virtual journey across America to witness the people and landscapes of stewardship in all of their richness and diversity. These stories capture the meaning of cooperative conservation and are the ultimate witness to the rise of a new environmentalism.

To create a culture of responsibility, we need to enhance opportunities for citizen stewards to work together. We need to generate and share scientific and other information that can inform conservation and land management decisions. We need the tools to measure results. We need team-building capacity and negotiating skills. We need governing tools that inspire and complement citizen stewardship and environmental entrepreneurship. I hope in these next few days you will explore how to strengthen these tools. Make no mistake. Cooperative conservation is not easy. But it offers a way to achieve enduring conservation results — a sustainability not possible when decisions are borne from divisiveness and trigger conflict. Cooperative conservation belongs to every American practicing it in thousands of small and larger acts, all adding up to millions of acres, miles of waterways, countless species benefits, and complex environmental problems addressed.

Above all, through the give and take of collaboration and partnerships, cooperative conservation offers a way for us to achieve healthy lands, waters and wildlife, alongside thriving communities. You are the key. Thank you for your efforts.