Missouri Bird Conservation Effort Wins National Acclaim

By Jim Low, Missouri Dept. of Conservation

First posted on 04-15-2009

Sometimes to save birds you have to save plants first. Similarly, if you are interested in Missouri birds you might have a strong stake in saving Central American forests. That is the sort of thinking across lines of interest and geography that won Missouri the Group Award from the Association of Joint Venture Management Boards and the North American Bird Conservation Initiative.

The award, presented at the 74th North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference, in Arlington, VA, on March 19, recognizes outstanding achievements by the Missouri Bird Conservation Initiative (MoBCI), a group of 54 organizations with remarkably divergent interests.

MoBCI traces its origins to 2003 and efforts to reverse the decline of certain bird species. Many of these troubled birds are neotropical migrants – species that need healthy, abundant habitat all along their migratory paths. In its relatively short history, MoBCI has grown to the point where it channels $100,000 in grants into bird-conservation projects each year. Projects are selected for funding through a competitive application process.

The challenges involved in saving birds, some of which have seasonal homes in South America, Canada and everyplace in between, were daunting. However, MoBCI organizers soon discovered solutions in the very diversity that characterized the challenge.

“A number of advocacy groups have sprung up in support of birds over the years,” said John Hoskins, director of the Missouri Department of Conservation. “The key to MoBCI’s achievements has been discovering areas of overlap between groups that seem, at first glance, to have very different agendas. Together, we have done some remarkable things by focusing our collective resources on projects that benefit several groups.”

Groups that no one would be surprised to learn belong to MoBCI include local and state Audubon societies, the World Bird Sanctuary in Valley Park, Mo., and the Sierra Club. Less obvious, but still perfectly logical, are conservation groups with their roots in hunting, which have a stake in preserving not only game species, but healthy habitats.

Groups you might never think of as potential MoBCI members without prompting include the Missouri Native Seed Association, Forest Park Forever and the Missouri Department of Transportation.

“Partnerships are incredibly powerful,” said Conservation Department Assistant Director Dave Erickson, who is among MoBCI’s founders. “The broader-based they are the more powerful they are.”

One excellent example of how MoBCI has brought together diverse interests for mutual benefit involved efforts to restore wetlands around Montrose Lake in Henry County. Partners in the endeavor included Kansas City Power and Light, Sharp Brothers Seed Company of Clinton, Mo., the Central Missouri State University Student Chapter of The Wildlife Society, Agri Drain Corporation of Adair, Iowa, Forest Keeling Nursery in Elsberry, Mo., the Missouri Waterfowl Association, the Audubon Society of Missouri, and Ducks Unlimited. The group parlayed $7,500 from MoBCI into a $75,000 grant from the North American Wetlands Conservation Act.

In another instance, a private landowner in Warren County contributed a conservation easement to efforts to improve ruffed grouse habitat. The cash value of that gift filled out a $20,000 MoBCI grant that brought in several times that amount from partners including the Ruffed Grouse Society, Audubon Missouri, Quail Unlimited, the National Wild Turkey Federation, Enterprise Leasing, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Conservation Department and an anonymous donor. The money paid for regeneration work on privately-owned oak-hickory forest to help the struggling grouse population on three conservation areas.

Another $20,000 MoBCI grant went to a partnership involving the Intercounty Electric Cooperative Association, private landowners in Texas County and the local NWTF chapter. They used the money to plant native, warm-season grasses and make other habitat improvements on utility rights-of-way.

“MoBCI is about empowerment,” said Erickson. “We will work with anyone whose goals benefit bird conservation. We can never have too many partners.”

“Joint ventures” are regional organizations set up to channel funding from the North American Wetlands Conservation Act into waterfowl conservation projects. Missouri is in the Upper Mississippi/Great Lakes Joint Venture. The Association of Joint Venture Management Boards brings together representatives of all North American joint ventures.

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