Supporting on-the-ground conservationists: The Conservation Practitioner Poll

Conservation practitioners are the delivery system for natural resource conservation across the United States. They work directly with farmers and landowners to implement conservation practices through technical assistance, conservation planning, and program implementation, and they play a critical role in helping farmers protect the nation’s natural resources. However, the voice of conservation practitioners is largely absent from policy discussions that shape conservation programs and guide implementation across the nation.

To address this lack of direct feedback and elevate the perspectives of conservation practitioners, the Soil and Water Conservation Society (SWCS) and Iowa State University researchers, with funding from the Walton Family Foundation, partnered to create the Conservation Practitioner Poll (CPP), a survey designed to regularly collect data on the needs and recommendations of conservation practitioners on a wide variety of topics. The goals of the CPP are threefold: to learn from “boots on the ground” practitioners how to improve the conservation delivery system, to understand what conservation practitioners need to be satisfied and successful in their jobs, and to elevate their voice in national conversations (figure 1).

Conservation practitioners were actively involved in the design of the CPP survey as focus group participants, and their insights informed survey topics and priorities. The inaugural survey was conducted in spring of 2021 and was distributed to conservation practitioners in …