At the Fall AMJV Management Board Meeting, natural resource managers throughout the Appalachians provided insight and guidance towards the focus of the AMJV work in the coming three years. This year marks the first revision of the AMJV Operational Plan, which outlines the major conservation priorities of the partnership and details how AMJV staff and partners will deliver specific contributions to accomplish collective objectives. The outline of the AMJV Operational Plan is being finalized, with a focus on developing tools to inform the JV’s landscape design, improving the Technical Committee structure, and continuing to strengthen habitat delivery capacity.

In addition to an intensive, lengthy discussion on the priority topics and goals of the next Operational Plan, staff provided the Management Board with updates on bird conservation activities taking place region-wide and recent AMJV accomplishments. These included:

• AMJV encourages JV Board Members and other JV partners to attend upcoming Capitol Hill Visit, which is taking place on March 23-25, 2015. Please contact Todd Fearer if you are interested for hotel information and to plan meetings with appropriate Congressional and/or agency staff.
• Working Lands for Wildlife Implementation Meeting: AMJV Staff are organizing a meeting for the week of March 16 (tentative) at Virginia Tech with current and potential partners involved in Working Lands for Wildlife (National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, National Wild Turkey Federation, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, American Bird Conservancy, Wildlife Management Institute, Virginia Tech Conservation Management Institute, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Pheasants Forever, National Audubon). The goal of this meeting is to discuss a new agreement with NRCS for providing technical assistance and options for reorganizing capacity on the ground to improve effectiveness of landowner outreach and habitat delivery.
• Next Board Meeting scheduled for May 20-21 at Roanoke, VA.