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Photo by Casey Stemler/USFWS

The Value of Reflection and Vision

At various times, a person reflects on their life, year, or simply day. Often, it’s as we reach the New Year that we contemplate our year. With the New Year around the corner, I hope each of you will have more positive reflections than negative about the year 2015. Not only do individuals reflect on their past, but so do organizations and partnerships. In doing so, they hope to recognize their foundation and gain wisdom from both successes and failures, allowing for thoughtful direction for the future.

The PPJV partners are working through the process of reflection and visioning as we revise our Implementation Plan. We will not neglect our foundation, yet we must become more aggressive in our efforts with grassland songbirds, integrating climate change factors into our conservation efforts, and understanding and implementing information derived from social science/human dimensions research.

At a recent PPJV Management Board meeting in Montana, the Board and Technical Committee engaged in a healthy discussion about people (e.g., human dimensions, social science). They recognized that actions, or lack thereof, of people impact everything we do in conservation. With that said, the question was asked, “how is the PPJV going to address this fact and expand its approach and thinking beyond strictly