While developing and implementing conservation programs can help fix rivers, our country's water problems are systemic and can only be fixed long-term if we have government support through policy reform.
The early years of this organization were heavily geared toward this type of policy change. For example, in 1991, we successfully led a coalition that listed several Pacific salmon under the Endangered Species Act. As we spent the following decades performing on-the-ground restoration, gathering data, and improving the analytics that optimize our work, we started recognizing the need for even greater policy change. Having enabled $1 billion of quantified conservation, we converted our first-hand experience about what is not working in conservation and wove that information into policy reform at the federal, state, or local levels. Our policy change efforts will simplify, streamline, and accelerate watershed-scale funding efforts.
TFT advocates for reform to major federal and state natural resource funding programs that will uphold a system that delivers quantifiable watershed improvements. In other words, we want to see funding that focuses on conservation outcomes and prioritizes funding to projects that can prove they are viable and effective solutions. Our testimony and work with legislators help to embed outcomes-based funding mechanisms into major recurring federal and state agency funding programs, such as the Farm Bill, EPA programs, and climate bonds.
Perhaps our biggest goal with policy reform deals with addressing conservation funding problems. In the current system, projects receive funding months, if not years, after their initial application, and must submit different applications to different funding sources, making it difficult for organizations to achieve their goals. There needs to be a better solution for funding programs at the speed of business, and TFT is working with partners to develop modern funding solutions that scale.