Dragonfly on lotus, image via Pixabay

Board reaffirms and endorses WGF efforts in face of federal changes

Written by Carolyn Pralle, WGF Communications and Outreach Coordinator

At present, many people who care about clean water, clean air, rich biodiversity, and healthy ecosystems are worried and outraged. The pace of change and the scale of damage at the federal level to conservation and environmental protection (not to mention numerous other areas of life) can feel destabilizing. For many of us, these changes go against our values. We hurt for the lack of integrity, respect, and careful stewardship of our public resources like water, land, and knowledge.

The changes and funding cuts unravel decades (often lifetimes) of scientific research, natural resources management, and public education that have protected and cared for people and the natural world. Worse, the cuts destroy opportunities for students and early and mid-career professionals to continue and improve these efforts. Worst of all, the changes risk long-term setbacks for people all around the world, including Wisconsin, to drink clean water, breathe clean air, live in a stable climate, and enjoy sharing their lives with diverse communities of healthy wildlife, fish, plants, and people.

In confronting our current moment, at least three things are vital.

• First, don’t panic.
• Second, keep a weather eye on the unfolding storm.
• Third, turn inward to plan how to survive and how to respond.

Within the WGF community, we’ve been doing all three.

Below, we’d like to share two examples from our Board of Directors from our most recent board meetings in April and June 2025.

April – Reaffirming our Positions

In April, we were grappling with financial disruptions for our projects with federal funding (primarily our Farm Sustainability Rewards Project) as well as a quickly shifting communications/funding landscape ‘blacklisting’ words like sustainability, climate change, and diversity. We decided to stand our ground.

We would not shy away from science on any of these critically important topics. We would not remove any content or scrub ‘blacklisted’ words from our website. We would hold fast to our values and our respect for history, land, and Indigenous people. We might adjust how to carry out our projects, but we would not change what those projects aimed to do. We would hold our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice.

In a unanimous decision, the board reaffirmed WGF’s Strategic Plan, Strategic Priorities, Land Acknowledgement, and Statement on Respecting Traditional Ecological Knowledge.

June – Endorsing New Strategies of the WGF Science Council

By June, our work responding to changes at the federal level was underway. That work included letters and formal public comments to federal officials as well as outreach to the wider conservation community about the issues and opportunities for individuals to act. Meanwhile, we were working to find new ways internally and externally to track and document the changes while building capacity with more partnerships.

These efforts centered around the volunteers on the WGF Science Council, many of whom also serve as leaders on WGF’s different work groups and teams. The Science Council and some staff met for a 2-day retreat at Kemp Station to further develop ideas and strategies. At the June board meeting the following week, the board discussed and recognized the value and direction of that planning/strategizing effort. Supporting the continuation of that work, the board unanimously approved the following:

Wisconsin’s Green Fire (WGF) is opposed to the unraveling of 50 years of environmental protection.

The WGF Board endorses Science Council action to identify changes in federal rules, laws, staffing, budgets and policies affecting natural resource management and environmental quality in Wisconsin.

The Science Council has proposed two strategies: “1) track, document, and communicate how reduced federal funding impacts conservation in Wisconsin; and 2) develop and expand partnerships with professional organizations to increase WGF capacity” and information gathering while broadening the reach of our communications.

WGF Science Council members strategize during retreat at Kemp Station, June 3-4, 2025

The Main Takeaways

Being strategic means we can’t and won’t respond to every change. We will be sharing more information about the new efforts of our Science Council, work groups, and staff over the coming months. If you would like to become more involved in these efforts, please do not hesitate to reach out and connect with us.

The challenges before us remain large. We remain a relatively young, small, state-focused organization. Yet, we are energized. We are doing the work internally and externally. Our partner relationships are strong, and we want to strengthen and expand them even more.

The steeliness demanded by our present moment also brings brightness. WGF is celebrating the success of our spring and summer solstice fundraising efforts. This community of voices for conservation shows growing enthusiasm for our collective mission. Collectively, we are advancing science-based, knowledge driven conservation in Wisconsin and beyond. We are truly thankful. It is a privilege to do this work together.

A Closing Quote

As the thought leader who inspired our name, we unsurprisingly turn to Aldo Leopold for inspiration. This famous passage from A Sand County Almanac is an apropos reminder of our calling to do science-based conservation work:

“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.”