Photo: Green-winged Teal, Gary Zahm/Audubon Photography Awards
Libby Lyons
NVBA strengthened its role as a regional conservation leader in October, organizing an event to bring together organizations and other entities involved in conservation in northern Virginia. NVBA hosted, on October 10, 2024, a large all-day symposium entitled “Habitat Restoration and Expansion in Northern Virginia.” NVBA board member Gary Shinners was the driving force behind the event. With NVBA co-sponsor Earth Sangha and a team of NVBA volunteers and staff, he assembled an exceptional group of speakers and participants who offered valuable insights on restoring and preserving native habitat.
We’re preparing a report summarizing the symposium, but I can’t wait for that – I want to share why I am excited about the event.
More than 110 participants from across the region attended, representing local and state government agencies, conservation organizations, and citizens’ groups. What everyone shared was a clear passion for restoring habitat and protecting natural areas. Topics included threats to natural areas and their impact on birds and other wildlife, ways to expand tree canopy cover and build natural corridors, approaches taken by various local habitat conservation organizations such as master naturalists, park stewards, tree stewards, and invasive removal groups, and the legislative and advocacy landscape for these issues.
NVBA’s primary objectives for the symposium were to facilitate networking and information sharing. Having watched interactions among participants, seen the rapt audience, and read the incoming evaluations – it is clear that on both of these counts the meeting was a huge success.
I believe that the symposium resulted in many benefits in addition to sharing strategies for conservation: For example, the symposium
highlighted the need for more regional communication and coordination;
brought into focus many conservation challenges and provided the opportunity to identify which groups might best lead or take a supporting role in addressing those challenges;
demonstrated that such events can directly strengthen conservation efforts, as evidenced by participants’ evaluations that indicated a majority believed that they can apply information they learned to bolster their own conservation work; and
enabled NVBA to showcase our Stretch Our Parks and Wildlife Sanctuary programs as conservation models that might be scaled up across the region.
The symposium also reinforced for NVBA the importance of retaining a strategic focus on our mission of bird conservation. The challenges are many and, while NVBA can be a reliable partner and leader in the region, its size is small. To be effective in bird and wildlife conservation, we recognize the importance of creating partnerships with other organizations. We also recognize that a focus on habitat conservation will be a significant, but not the sole, part of our strategy.
We believe that the symposium report will have value for those who could not attend, outlining strategies for habitat restoration and conservation. It also can support fundraising efforts by NVBA and others, both for initiatives that come out of the symposium and to support similar events in the future. An additional benefit is that it can provide a valuable overview of the regional conservation landscape for NVBA’s incoming executive director, whom we hope to have in place by the end of the year.
As the event ended, I was heartened by the enthusiasm and ideas generated by folks keen to build on the momentum of the event. And I see the symposium as another contribution to NVBA’s ongoing exploration of how we can increase our effectiveness throughout northern Virginia.
Stay tuned for more work on this front and for the report!