Grassroots Conservation Campaign
Habitat Restoration & Protection - Goal: $8.5 million
Pheasants Forever's mission is to conserve, rescue and restore open space – the natural habitat for pheasants, quail and other wildlife. We're aggressively working to secure improvements in land, water and wildlife management policies and on programs of public awareness as well as education. As passionate stewards of the land, our staff and thousands of volunteers work tirelessly to protect existing open space, or return it to a natural state through proven biological and restoration programs. Our work truly is a grassroots effort.
Why is it important?
'Save the rainforest,' the current catch-all rallying cry of the conservation-minded, often reflects genuine motivation without practical solution. The fact is, prairie grasslands are the 'rain forests' of North America – as close as your back yard and even more threatened. According to the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service more than 400,000 square miles of tallgrass prairie once covered the United States. Today 95% of those grasslands have been permanently destroyed or converted to agriculture use. In addition to land restoration, we work to reduce soil erosion and improve land management practices that directly benefit water quailty and wildlife resources. In doing so we are establishing an enduring wildlife legacy for our children and grandchildren. We're working to slow the permanent loss of open land – to restore it to its natural beauty and vital function. We have trained biologists assisting our dedicated volunteers continually looking to find new and better ways to protect wildlife habitat and, whenever possible, return it to its natural state. We need your help if we are to continue protecting, rescuing and restoring our precious open space land. Without that help, our goal will slip away.
How will we achieve it?
The Habitat Legacy Society, Pheasants Forever's planned giving recognition program, enables participants to quickly and easily donate assets that will help us protect and restore wildlife habitat. Pheasants Forever uses a combination of direct acquisition and improved management policies to acquire the land. But it's more than acquiring land, we're making critical connections and getting laws passed. Through active support of Farm Bill legislation, we've helped advance restoration and protection of public and private lands, creating a solid foundation for legislative programs such as the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) and the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP).