Outstanding Public Lands Professional Awards - 2010

Technical/Operational Category

Renee Dana
Presentation of award (l to r): Henri Bisson, President of the Public Lands Foundation; Renee Dana, Awardee and Coordinator of BLM's Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative; Bob Abbey, Director of the Bureau of Land Management; and George Lea, Founder and Past-President of the Public Lands Foundation.

RENEE DANA is the Bureau of Land Management’s Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative (WLCI) Coordinator.  WLCI is unique in that it partners eight federal, state, and local government agencies and organizations.  Working through the WLCI, Renee Dana has shown outstanding professional performance addressing Greater Sage-grouse issues in Wyoming.

The Greater Sage-grouse has recently been identified as a warranted, but precluded species to the Threatened & Endangered Species List by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The potential impacts if the Greater Sage-grouse is listed as endangered would be catastrophic to the economies, recreation, public land use, renewable energy, and numerous industries in 11 Western states.

Despite the current economic recession, Ms. Dana has been instrumental in securing nearly $1 million of private funding and has been pivotal in obtaining financial supporting partners with federal, state, local agencies and organizations for Greater Sage-grouse projects.

Ms. Dana inspires other entities to work towards common goals for not only WLCI, but also in concert with the Federal Land Policy and Management Act’s multiple use philosophy.  She is a sought after advisor. She was selected to serve on an elite team to conduct field reviews for oil & gas leasing reform. She gave the team the guidance necessary to be able to recommend efficient and effective modifications to oil and gas leasing review procedures throughout BLM’s jurisdiction.

Ms. Dana is effective in bringing together various groups and entities to work toward a common goal at a landscape level.  One of her accomplishments has been the transition from individual priority off-the-shelf projects to group designed and implemented projects addressing landscape scale issues. Due to Ms. Dana’s leadership, the Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative has become the model for landscape level partnerships which could be used elsewhere.

Renee Dana’s extraordinary performance in an operations/technical role has earned her the Public Lands Foundation’s Outstanding Public Land Professional Award in the Operations/Technical category for 2010.