I'm a restoration ecologist in Montana with about 30 years of grassland, stream, wetland, and riparian restoration work in the Northern Rockies. Much of that work has been repairing damage that never should have happened. I want to share what I'm seeing and what I'm starting, because I think it applies well beyond Montana.

The Basic Problem: The Laws Exist, The System Does Not Work

Montana regulates physical work in streams through a state law from 1975, usually called the 310 law. Anyone who wants to dig in a channel, armor a bank, or alter a stream needs a permit from their local conservation district. On paper, that sounds like protection.

In practice:

• The people deciding permits aren't required to have any scientific training.

• A site inspection happens only if the state wildlife agency asks for one.

• Once a permit is approved, no one is required to check whether the project was built as approved, or whether it protected the stream.

Montana also has no wetland permitting program of its own, and riparian zones beyond a stream's immediate banks have no comprehensive state protection.

The result: people dig up rivers, strip banks, fill wetlands, and destroy how streams function, often with a permit in hand.

Why It Is Getting Worse

For decades, federal law (Section 404 of the Clean Water Act) filled some of those gaps. That protection is shrinking. The 2023 Sackett v. EPA decision removed federal protection from millions of acres of wetlands, and more federal permitting rollbacks are moving through Congress now. As federal protection pulls back, state systems are all that's left, and in states like Montana, they were never built to carry that weight.

Protecting Users From Rivers, Instead Of Protecting Rivers From Users & Abusers

The law says it protects streams. But the way it's administered mostly protects landowners and land use from rivers: from floods, erosion, and a river doing what rivers do. Permits get approved to hold rivers in place for whoever owns the land next to them.

That's backwards. A river is a living system, and its floodplains, wetlands, and riparian zones are part of it. They store and filter water, slow floods, rebuild banks, and support most of the wildlife in the region. The goal should be protecting rivers from the people who alter them, not protecting people from rivers.

To be clear, this isn't about pollution or water rights. Those are handled by other agencies. This is about physical alteration: excavation, fill, bank armoring, and channel changes.

What We Are Doing

1. Forming a working group of people with the science, legal, and field background to take this on.

2. Gathering public records on how permits are actually handled: what gets approved, inspected, and followed up on.

3. Getting a legal review of realistic changes to state law, including what Montana's Constitution requires. It guarantees a clean and healthful environment and directs the Legislature to prevent the degradation of natural resources.

4. Writing it up: a white paper (first draft done), a feasibility report, and a plan for bringing a bill to the Montana Legislature.

What I Would Like From This Community

• How is your state handling stream and wetland protection after Sackett? What's worked, and what hasn't?

• If you've worked with state permitting programs that do require qualified review, inspections, or follow-up, I'd like to hear how they're set up.

• If you have a background in hydrology, wetland science, restoration, or environmental law and want to help, comment or send me a message.

More detail and updates are on my subreddit: r/Ecoregion6

Thanks for reading.

i've been thinking about getting an environmental science degree for a while, would this help me land a job in conservation or would i need a different degree? do i even need a degree at all? i don't really know how any of this works and i want advice!!! i'm stuck working at walmart and it's genuinely miserable, but my dream is to help bring species on the brink of extinction back to regular numbers in our ecosystems!!! how would i go about doing this?

We've just completed our documentary on box turtle races, which are popular at county fairs and other festivals in the Midwest. Here is the trailer. We're hoping to get the feature onto public television.

More info: https://turtle-conservation.com/documentary

Hello! I am backpacking Asia for 6mo starting second week of January! I start in the philippines and would love to spend some of my time volunteering for an organization. Im having a hard time working through the fluff of advertisements or pay-to-play companies. Im trying to volunteer for a non-profit or organization. I dont want to take jobs or positions that could be offered to locals, just looking to help if it is appropriate to do so. I have lots of experience working with animals and in nature, as well as clinical experience working for large animal vet clinics. Id love to help somewhere in the conservation/wildlife realm. If anyone knows of any opportunities that seem fitting id love to hear from you! :)

Im also headed to Taiwan, Nepal, China, Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan if anyone knows any reputable companies in those areas I could look into. Thank you!!

A new open-access study in Nature Communications suggests that bat diversity in Latin America is substantially underestimated.

The authors reanalyzed 12,813 publicly available DNA sequences (COI) from 65 bat genera, built 63 phylogenies, and applied five species delimitation methods. They found at least 95 lineages that may represent undescribed species, spread across 45 species complexes. In other words, at least one in five recognized Neotropical bat species may be hiding others. This hidden diversity appears across the whole bat tree, from nectar and fruit bats to insectivores.

They then combined these results with niche models, maps of human land use, and climate projections:

• 62% of these species complexes face imminent habitat loss.

• Most could lose more than half of their climatically suitable habitat by 2070.

• At current rates of species description, formally naming them would take decades.

The study also maps 10 “hidden diversity hotspots,” from Mexico and Central America to the Guianas and the Ecuadorian Amazon, where undescribed richness overlaps with strong human pressure and climate vulnerability. The authors propose these as priority areas for taxonomic research and funding.

The main point: an unnamed species can’t be listed as threatened, protected by law, or included in conservation planning. These bats could disappear without anyone recording the loss.

Paper (open access): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-78393-0

Whether one is looking for an opening within state, federal, or private, which are some sites to keep an eye on?

Defenders of Wildlife remains opposed to the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA) following revisions that leave the bill's most damaging provisions affecting the Endangered Species Act largely unchanged.

Andrew Bowman, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife released the following statement:

“Congress has had an opportunity to improve this bill, yet its fundamental threats to endangered wildlife remain. The Endangered Species Act is not responsible for America's permitting delays, and weakening this landmark law will not solve them. Instead, this legislation would strip away essential safeguards, create new uncertainty and put decades of conservation progress at risk.

“Last week's historic elections changed the political landscape. Newly elected members of Congress, along with the committees responsible for these laws, deserve a meaningful role in negotiating a better agreement. America's wildlife should not be sacrificed for a rushed deal when we have an opportunity to get this right. The Senate should reject BAAJA.”

The revised legislation retains five provisions that Defenders says would undermine wildlife protections without meaningfully improving permitting efficiency:

• A patchwork of state wildlife reviews. The bill would allow states to assume federal Endangered Species Act consultation responsibilities, potentially creating inconsistent processes across the country. Federal consultations are already efficient: 92% are informal, typically taking about two weeks, while formal consultations generally take about two months.

• Exemptions that bypass wildlife safeguards. Certain highway projects and nationwide water permit reissuances would be exempt from requirements intended to ensure federal actions do not jeopardize endangered species.

• New uncertainty over scientific standards. Vague changes to how agencies evaluate scientific evidence could invite litigation, delay project approvals and make it harder for wildlife experts to apply the best available science.

• Reduced access to judicial review. The bill would impose a 150-day deadline for certain challenges involving Endangered Species Act decisions, replacing the generally applicable six-year period, and channel those cases to appellate courts that lack the same experience acting as district courts as the district courts themselves. Others would have to proceed under accelterated schedules. 

• Shorter deadlines without additional resources. The standard formal consultation period would shrink from 90 to 60 days without corresponding increases in agency staffing or funding, risking less thorough reviews and additional legal challenges.

Defenders of Wildlife supports improving permitting efficiency and building the infrastructure America needs. But maintains that those goals can be achieved without weakening the Endangered Species Act or creating new obstacles to responsible development.

Defenders urges senators to oppose BAAJA and allow the incoming Congress to negotiate a better permitting agreement.

I recently posted an idea about restoring village grasslands in North Gujarat, India, and linking them with a wildlife corridor to nearby sanctuaries. You can find it on my profile.

The part I can't solve is incentives. Most villagers lose something when wildlife returns (crop damage, grazing land), so "it's good for nature" won't be enough.

What has worked where you live or have seen? I'm open to any kind:

- Money: payments, jobs, tourism, selling produce

- Non-money: water, fodder, safer crops, a say in decisions

- Pride: recognition, a village identity tied to an animal, a festival or a name people are proud of

Examples from any country are welcome, including ones that failed and why.

As the title says I have to interview someone in a career I am interested in and I have chose conservation as I believe it is necessary work that would leave me feeling fulfilled.

The interview can be over a video call, phone call, or email/PM, whatever you are comfortable with.

If you can help out please PM me your career, and how long you have worked in that field.

Appreciate anyone willing to help out in advance!

my niece got a certificate a plush, and a photo of a snow leopard that im pretty sure 400 other kids also adopted.. shes 9 and kinda out of of her mind excited aboutit so Im not saying nil to her. but did get me wondering where the $50 really went.

any of it reach wherever this snow leopard lives or is it mostly paying for plushies and mailers?