New CRC Blog- Honoring a visionary in conservation

By Paul Buttner

I can’t just let Dave White, Chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), move on without a very sincere “thank you” on behalf of the California rice growers and the millions of waterbirds that rely on the 500,000 acres of flooded, working lands habitat provided by California ricelands.  Dave has announced his departure from NRCS, effective December 3.  However, the results of his interest and enthusiasm for helping to promote waterbird habitat programs in California rice and beyond will continue for years to come.

At the time Dave White was appointed to serve as NRCS Chief about four years ago, we and several of our valued conservation partners—Audubon California, PRBO Conservation Science and The Nature Conservancy—were busy having workshops with rice growers and testing out fresh ideas to further enhance the value of California ricelands for waterbirds.  Come about 2011, we had the best ideas on the table and monitoring results from pilot-scale implementation of these new practices.

Hearing about this effort, Dave saw a set of new conservation ideas and a working lands conservation coalition that seemed ready to graduate from study phase to pilot program phase.  As such, he acted to make funds available, through the good work of his California State Office, to expand this effort into a subregional pilot program in 2011.  The result is the newly created Waterbird Habitat Enhancement Program (WHEP).  This program now has over 100,000 acres of ricelands in California enrolled—20 percent of our industry—in just two years time.  These acres are now sprinkled with expanded options for waterbird nesting, feeding and loafing through the construction of nesting islands and improved water management practices along with many other enhancements.

Earlier this year our industry honored Dave White and his team, including the efforts of the California State Office, with its Circle of Life Award for both making funding available and assisting with program development and implementation.  Here is a photo of Dave accepting his award from me at his office in March.

Dave, you leave NRCS with a great legacy of being a “can do” type of leader and melding that with a tremendous vision for the role that working agricultural lands can play in helping to protect critical wildlife habitat needs such as migrating waterbirds and other species of wildlife.  I sincerely thank you for your positive impact wildlife conservation and wish you the best in your future endeavors.

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Paul Buttner is Manager of Environmental Affairs for the California Rice Commission.