RFF is a registered 501(C)(3) non-profit organization established in 2000 to provide conservation education tools and solutions to promote conservation and restoration activities for fish, wildlife and other natural resources primarily on privately owned lands across the United States.

Since its inception, RFF has been guided by the principle that any comprehensive conservation strategy must address the human component for widespread adoption of conservation values. As such, RFF recognizes private landowners as stewards of the land, and caretakers of our future natural resources. 61% of our nation’s landscape (71% of the continental U.S.) is in private ownership, yet the overwhelming majority of our public and philanthropic financial resources are focused in public land conservation, ignoring the largest segment of the market needing conservation assistance, tutelage and freedom to innovate.

• The development of web-based projects designed to serve the conservation objectives of the private landowner community across the United States.
• Community-based conservation and education projects in the Southern tier of Africa through the Wilderness Safaris Wildlife Trust.
• The purchase of high seas and interceptory Atlantic salmon fisheries through the Atlantic Salmon Fund.
• Community-based education, conservation, and improvement programs on Bequia, St. Vincent through Moonhole Friends Foundation

Private land stewardship cannot be coerced. It must be encouraged, incentivized, recognized, rewarded, highlighted through profiling innovative leaders, and above all, made clear and relatively straight forward. The RFF solution is to focus on actionable information in a neutral setting with a user friendly interface and a long reach into rural communities through networks of service providers listed in our yellow pages. RFF focuses on empowering landowners to engage in conservation activities with an innovative approach that involves a home computer, the internet, networks of local experts, and a searchable directory of information, resources, and local points of contact.

 

The traditional approach to complex conservation problems involved environmental activists, lawyers, policy makers, regulations, litigation, and legislation - the top-down approach.  This approach often demonized farm, ranch and forest owners and placed the highest value on the environmental objective - often a designated place to conserve plants or wildlife.  A private landowner’s needs, including their livelihood, intergenerational transfer of land, and the sustainability of their operations were discounted or ignored.