What’s New:

2009 marks the 20th Anniversary of the National Wetlands Awards program. Since 1989, the program has honored 143 champions of wetlands conservation; helped draw local and national media attention to their causes; and played an important role in securing funding for and convincing policy makers to consider seriously the issues they have championed. Please consider nominating someone for the 20th Anniversary National Wetlands Awards.

The 2009 nomination form and nomination guidelines are now available.

The 2008 National Wetlands Awards winners accept their awards. View more photos from the ceremony.

 

About the NWAs | Awardees | The Ceremony | Nominations | Contact Us

2003 National Wetlands Award Recipients

 

Outstanding Program Development

John Beal has been restoring habitat, streams, and wetlands for more than 25 years. Inspired by the idea that people should leave the world a better place than they found it, Mr. Beal began restoring an urban tributary to Seattle’s Duwamish River, an industrialized watercourse for which many people in the area had lost hope. Rather than writing off the waterway, he organized a network of volunteers to clean up trash, replant streams, restock them with wild salmon, and raise public awareness about the Duwamish River. He founded the I’M A PAL (International Marine Association Protecting Aquatic Life) Foundation, a grassroots nonprofit environmental organization dedicated to protecting waterways, watersheds, and their ecosystems.

Working with schools, environmental organizations, community advocates, tribes, and governmental agencies, Mr. Beal has rallied public support and funding for many projects involving critical habitat restoration and salmon stream daylighting (a term used for restoring buried waterways by removing them from underground pipes and culverts and recreating natural surface drainage patterns). The I’M A PAL Foundation now has 18 restoration project sites and has also successfully rehabilitated hundreds of injured and abandoned animals through its wildlife rehabilitation facility. The organization supports several outdoor and indoor education programs that work with students and “at risk” youth groups. Ten years ago, Mr. Beal expanded his efforts to restoring the entire Duwamish River watershed through the Green/Duwamish Watershed Alliance and the Duwamish River Patrol, both of which he founded and runs. He carries his passion for involving the community with him on this larger task, and he is making a difference in his community and the ecosystem.

— Lana Beal, Seattle, Washington, (Photo Courtesy of YES! Magazine)

Outstanding Program Development

Paul Scott Hausmann and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources statewide wetland team he leads have developed and implemented a state program widely emulated for its excellence and innovation in managing and protecting wetlands. Mr. Hausmann’s 29 years of work, inspiration, and leadership have been pivotal in securing many of the state’s wetland achievements, including becoming the first state, in 2001, to pass water quality legislation to fill the gaps in jurisdiction created by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Mr. Hausmann coordinates the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resource’s wetland protection and management programs. He also is staff liaison to the state’s Coastal Management Program. His influence and leadership have extended beyond state boundaries as well. As a founding member and past chair of the Association of State Wetland Managers, Mr. Hausmann created an organization that empowers local, state, tribal, and federal wetland professionals to exchange ideas, solve problems, and function as a sound, rational voice for improving wetland policy and protection. He was involved in creating the association’s key policy documents, and he continues as a member of the association’s Board of Directors, providing valuable advice and insight. Mr. Hausmann has testified before Congress on behalf of Wisconsin and state wetland managers, and he has contributed to a variety of national forums. Wetland program ideas emerging in other states have benefitted from Mr. Hausmann’s generous knowledge, prodding, and sense of humor, and from Wisconsin’s fine example. Mr. Hausmann’s years of service to Wisconsin and his efforts to help shape better national policy exemplify outstanding program development.

— Cathy Garra, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5, Chicago, Illinois

Volunteer Leadership

Maggy Hurchalla’s family moved to Miami in the 1920s, just in time for the 1926 Hurricane-a wall of water and wind that humbled Florida’s boom-time settlers. Ms. Hurchalla grew up in Dade County in the 1940s, when hurricanes crisscrossed South Florida at a rate never seen before or since. Growing up in those tempestuous times next to a 20-acre cow pasture that was sometimes all wet and sometimes all dry made it easy for her to understand that Florida’s wetlands are dynamic.

Ms. Hurchalla became a county commissioner in 1974 in South Florida’s Martin County, where development had not yet bulldozed the wilderness. She served as commissioner for 20 years through tumultuous battles over growth and environment. When isolated wetlands were not protected by state or federal agencies, Ms. Hurchalla transformed Martin County into a national leader for wetland protection. She recognized that no wetland in Florida is truly isolated, and that the mosaic of small and seemingly disconnected sloughs are as important to Florida’s water supply and wildlife as the more attention-attracting Everglades.

When the largest environmental restoration ever attempted began to take shape through the federal Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, Ms. Hurchalla played a major role, serving on the Governor’s Commission for a Sustainable South Florida and helping to resolve critical issues over wetlands. She also incorporated her knowledge of county governance and of the federal restoration plan as part of a team that designed the first critical component of the plan for the Indian River Lagoon and the St. Lucie Estuary. The design shows concretely that restoring wetlands is essential for ecosystem restoration and that environmentalists and the federal government can be partners in effective restoration.

— Donna Melzer, Martin County Conservation Alliance, Stuart, Florida

Science Research

The depth and breadth of academic contributions to the understanding of the ecology of floodplain forests made by Graeme Lockaby are unsurpassed. Dr. Lockaby, a native of Seneca, South Carolina, is professor and acting associate dean for research in the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences at Auburn University in Alabama. Over the past 20 years, Dr. Lockaby has been studying nutrient cycling in floodplains. He investigates effects of changing uses of rural lands, ownership fragmentation, and urban development on forested landscapes, using new methodologies for quantitative integration of socioeconomic and ecological data. He also devotes research attention to biogeochemical functions of floodplain forests.

In addition to his highly productive personal research program, Dr. Lockaby has been a key catalyst to interdisciplinary and broadly collaborative work on the ecology and functions of forest wetland systems of the southeastern United States. In his efforts to implement sound science within the broad concept of renewable natural resource sustainability, he recently organized a major workshop with broad participation that succeeded in bridging gaps in collaboration among natural resources agencies and institutions. His outstanding success in building research teams of broad expertise and in securing resources to tackle complex challenges in natural systems management make him a unique asset to the academic environment and a great mentor for his graduate students.

Dr. Lockaby was awarded a Ph.D. in Forest Soils from Mississippi State University in 1981. He currently provides leadership for Auburn University’s “Peaks of Excellence” program in Forest Sustainability, an interdisciplinary effort that examines the interplay among ecological, sociological, and economic factors as these affect and are affected by landscape change.

— George Bengtson, Auburn University School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn, Alabama

Land Stewardship and Development

David Carter grew up on a small farm in southwestern Iowa near the town of Randolph. He and his younger brother Eric both helped on the farm, and they developed strong work habits from their parents Rodney and Sarah Carter. Upon graduation from Iowa State University, Mr. Carter returned home and began working for the Fremont County Soil and Water Conservation District, ultimately as the wetland specialist and project coordinator for the Two Rivers Project, an effort supported by federal, state, and county agencies to enroll farmers into the wetland and floodplain programs offered by Natural Resources Conservation Service and other agencies. Since joining the project, Mr. Carter has helped with the enrollment of 12 new wetland and floodplain easements in Fremont County through the Wetland Reserve Program and Emergency Watershed Program, totaling 3,040 acres, as well as the restoration of nearly 4,200 acres on 21 easements. There are still many acres to be restored, and he is actively working to enroll more acres. Along with his main duties as administrator of the 37 reserve easements within the county, Mr. Carter works with the Conservation Reserve Program to install small wetlands, filterstrips, and shallow water areas for wildlife habitat. He also works in conjunction with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to help landowners find funding and information to support wetland habitat development and restoration.

Mr. Carter produces the Two Rivers Project Newsletter, which annually updates the public about the easement programs and other pertinent information about wetlands. He has recently created a website for the district that includes Two Rivers Project news and links to other conservation agencies.

— James Gulliford, US Environmental Protection Agency, Region 7, Kansas City, Kansas

Land Stewardship and Development

Bryce and Brad Evans purchased 1,450 acres of bottomland in Missouri in 1991, with dreams of developing a top-notch row crop farm. The Missouri River shattered those dreams after flooding in 1993, leaving behind a landscape scarred by deep scour holes and covered by hundreds of acres of sand. Unwilling to give up, the brothers made a decision to manage the land for wildlife and enrolled it in the Emergency Wetland Reserve Program. In 1995, the river again reclaimed the land, destroying more than one-quarter of a million newly planted tree seedlings. The brothers replanted, but in 1996 the river rose once more. At that point they made a decision to manage the land as nature would. They became committed to restoring the once healthy riparian habitat, and they envisioned a return to land as fertile and healthy as when Lewis and Clark first saw it 200 years ago. They are currently working to develop wildlife habitat on more than 11,000 acres of bottomlands and more than 4,000 acres of uplands.

During their early restoration efforts, the Evans brothers began to gain a deeper understanding of the delicate balance between humans and nature and of the relationship between wildlife and land use. Following their strong belief in total ecosystem management, the brothers are managing their lands for all wildlife, rather than just a few species. Their management plans include creating, preserving, and enhancing wildlife habitat for game and non-game species, and for designating refuge areas each year for game animals as well as all other wildlife species. The Evans brothers also focus their energies on educating others-they firmly believe that education, habitat development, total ecosystem management, and best management practices are the key to the future survival of healthy wildlife populations.

— Kelly Hiesberger, Grant Tech Consulting and Conservation Services, Meriden, Kansas

Education and Outreach

After many years of environmental and conservation activism in his private and professional life, Neil Johnston has derived his formula for environmental change and stands by it: “Educate, educate, educate.” Mr. Johnston, fisherman, hunter, conservationist, and devoted father of two, contends that the key to education depends on having a simple message framed in an understandable way and delivered by someone the public trusts. It is this “can do” attitude that marks the many successful environmental programs led by Mr. Johnston along the northern Gulf Coast.

A native of Mobile, Alabama, and a partner in the law firm Hand, Arendall, L.L.C., Mr. Johnston is chair of the firm’s Environmental and Land Use Section. Despite his workload and his devotion to his family, he somehow finds the time to be active in several local civic groups and boards. Most dear to his heart is the Project CATE (Conservation Action Through Education) Foundation, an organization dedicated to the balanced environmental education of children. Formed by Mr. Johnston in 1990, Project CATE develops interactive classroom materials that highlight conservation of Alabama’s plant and animal species. The foundation’s first educational CD, Ribbit’s Big Splash, was introduced in 2000 and focuses on water conservation and habitats. The CD has won many state and national educational awards. Project CATE also co-sponsors the Coastal Kids Quiz, an environmental competition that utilizes the CD as a basis for its questions. The competition’s other sponsor is the Alabama Coastal Foundation, an organization that Mr. Johnston was instrumental in re-establishing and now serves as its president.

In an era where free time is fleeting, Mr. Johnston untiringly leads the charge in the search for solutions to the environmental issues facing his state and hometown.

— Tom Hutchings, Alabama Coastal Foundation, Montrose, Alabama

 

ELI HOME | ABOUT ELI | SUPPORT ELI | PRESS RELEASES | ORGANIZATIONAL MEMBERS
ENVIROMENTAL LAW REPORTER | THE ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM | NATIONAL WETLANDS NEWSLETTER