State of Play
Conservation Landscape Assessment
What conditions are needed on the ground at the local, state, and regional level to make conservation wins last?
To find out, the U.S. Nature Initiative undertook a Conservation Landscape Assessment to map the conservation field’s readiness to win durable outcomes for public lands and wildlife, private and working lands, and water. The answer was the same in every region.
The elements of durable conservation exist across the country, but too often they are disconnected. They rarely come together in the same place at the same time, and without a clear pathway for what works on the ground to scale into campaigns, policy, and federal outcomes.
PERSPECTIVE
The Next Generation of Conservation – Reinvesting in People and Places
"The next generation of American conservation needs to return to where it started — close to home."
— Christy Plumer, Senior Advisor to USNI
Methodology
200+ leaders interviewed
practitioners, agency leaders, Tribal representatives, landowners, nonprofits and policy experts
8 regions
Northeast, Southeast/Mid-South, Great Lakes, Midwest/Great Plains, Intermountain West, Pacific West, Hawaiʻi and Alaska, chosen through the science analysis behind the Nature Roadmap
3 pillars
public lands and wildlife, private and working lands, water
October 2025 to February 2026
led by eight regional experts with deep networks and a range of political perspectives
The same questions everywhere
what's working, the political conditions shaping progress, priority policy needs, the narratives and messengers that land, and what it will take to win over the next five to ten years
Six building blocks drive durable wins for land and water. Few places have all six.
The assessment found that durable conservation wins depend on six building blocks.
Credible, rooted local organizations
State and local groups with a real stake in the outcome.
1
A clear policy agenda
One that names the problem and the solution, so decision-makers can see the plan.
2
An aligned coalition with a clear lead
Trusted, multi-stakeholder partners behind one well-resourced organization that drives the work, with each partner staying in its lane.
3
Campaign and political know-how
Partners who know the legislative process can run a campaign, have the political advocacy capacity to lobby and hold decision-makers accountable, and show up consistently both with legislators and in affected communities.
4
Disciplined communications
People who know what moves target audiences in their state and have the discipline to stick to the message that wins.
5
Committed political champions
Leaders from the statehouse to the county commission who will work with coalitions over the long haul.
6
Most places were strong in some building blocks and missing others, with no consistent pattern from state to state. All six can be strengthened or built where they’re missing, but even where several are already in place, their impact too often stops at the state or local level. A critical component of durable conservation is still missing: the ability to translate state and local wins into broader campaigns and policy – and ultimately ladder these wins up to federal outcomes.
Winning messages already exist. Communications capacity turns them into wins.
Across regions, local partners often know which messages educate, engage, and resonate best. What's needed is the advocacy communications capacity to use them: the strategy and messengers that can put the right message in front of the right audience at the right time. Delivering messages that are smart, relevant, and accessible matters to building – and holding – public and political support.
What works is known locally
Messages land best when they tie conservation to tangible benefits in daily life, such as clean water, community safety, and local economies. Voluntary solutions and a long-term stewardship frame build broader support than mandates or crisis messaging.
Communications capacity is uneven
Some regions have strong communications expertise and others have far less. Message research grounded in persuadable audiences is even less common.
Who carries the message matters as much as the message
Trusted local voices, such as landowners, hunters and anglers, Tribal leaders, and local officials, build support. Messages seen as imposed from the outside often generate skepticism.
The work is clear.
The Conservation Landscape Assessment surfaced what has to be in place on the ground for conservation advocacy and implementation to succeed: the six building blocks, and the communications capacity to put winning messages to work. The policies in the American Nature Strategy’s three pillars cannot be won or implemented without them. That is why USNI is investing in these building blocks in the places where the Strategy works, so every policy campaign starts with better odds of winning, and its wins hold.
