About the presentation: Achieving conservation aims in the Great Lakes region, including protecting water quality, enhancing wildlife habitat, and building community resilience, often relies on voluntary actions by farmers, ranchers, and rural landowners. Numerous agencies, organizations, and policies support farmer adoption of soil health practices, improved nutrient management, and managed tile drainage. Despite decades of effort, adoption of key practices has lagged what is needed to reach larger conservation goals. National Wildlife Federation has worked with producers and conservation professionals for over a decade to improve outreach and conservation communications to reach new audiences and expand adoption of key practices. NWF programs apply insights from social and behavioral science to increase organizational capacity and identify novel strategies for increasing conservation adoption. This presentation will share key insights from NWF programs and outline research and extension needs to scale up adoption in the Great Lakes region.

About the speaker: Adam Reimer is the outreach and evaluation scientist at the National Wildlife Federation. He has training in interdisciplinary social and agricultural science with a PhD from Purdue University. Adam has an extensive research background exploring farmer and landowner conservation decision making and the role of policy and social networks in conservation outcomes. At NWF, he helps support local and farmer-led conservation outreach throughout the Midwest by leveraging social and behavioral sciences to develop effective engagement strategies.