Building policy and program supports for wetland conservation: The importance of state agencies

As a statewide organization with a big vision, Wisconsin Wetlands Association (WWA) leaders and staff spend a lot of time thinking about how to invest our resources to achieve the greatest positive impact on Wisconsin’s landscape.

Given that we don’t own or manage land or plan and implement restoration projects directly, much of our work emphasizes building the capacity of those who do or could engage in wetland conservation work. Increasingly, this includes building partnerships with state agencies.

Broadly speaking, state agencies exist to administer state policies and programs in ways that create public benefits and prevent public harm.

This dovetails nicely with our approach to promote wetlands as solutions. If we can help state agencies integrate wetland strategies to address issues of statewide concern, we will increase public investments in the protection and restoration of Wisconsin’s wetland landscape.

Want to reduce flood risks and damages? Wetlands can help. Want to conserve soil and improve water quality? Wetlands can help. Want to protect cold water fisheries from a changing climate? Wetlands can help.

These messages resonate, but many of the agencies working on these issues don’t yet have the authority, capacity, or experience needed to expand their efforts to include wetland solutions. Our work with state agencies aims to build that. Our current collaboration with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection (DATCP) illustrates what these efforts look like in practice.

Though state agency collaborations are a relatively new emphasis of our policy program work, this rapidly expanding and highly fruitful portion of our docket now includes collaborations to advance shared priorities with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, DATCP, Wisconsin Emergency Management, and the Wisconsin Coastal Management Program. We’re also actively working to establish new collaborations with program managers at the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.

This work is improving integration of wetland approaches within and between state agencies, and between state agencies, local governments, and other conservation professionals. This ‘raise all boats’ approach is helping to build a more robust and effective wetland community and workforce.

WWA and DATCP staff at a field-based training in 2023.

Agency Collaboration Profile: DATCP

The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection (DATCP) is the agency that oversees and supports Wisconsin’s Soil and Water Conservation Program. This program’s requirements reside in state statutes and administrative rules, which among other things:

1. Define what types of conservation practices are eligible for state cost-share dollars, and for what purposes.
2. Require DATCP’s Conservation Engineering Program to provide training to county Land Conservation Department staff.

The collaboration between DATCP and WWA launched in 2021 with a four-year, EPA-funded project focused on increasing adoption of wetland and stream restoration practices (e.g. hydrologic restoration) to help address water management issues in agricultural landscapes. The scope of work has included:

1. Policy development to enable Land Conservation Department staff to provide state costshare dollars to landowners for voluntary hydrologic restoration projects.
2. Development and delivery of trainings to improve knowledge of hydrology fundamentals among DATCP engineers and Land Conservation staff. These trainings also build capacity to assess where and how restoring degraded hydrology can help address erosion and water quality concerns.

Over the past four years, WWA staff have collaborated with DATCP on trainings in person, online, and in the field to help build the agency staff’s understanding of hydrologic restoration.

Following a variety of virtual, classroom, and field-based trainings, the project will wrap up this summer with one last round of field-based trainings to help Land Conservation Department staff apply what they’ve learned, as well as an evaluation to measure learners’ progress and identify additional training needs.

We are also actively exploring funding to support the next phase of this work. Watch our blog for additional news on activities and outcomes from this expansive state agency collaboration.

Related content

Identifying and advancing our wetland policy agenda

January 2025 marked the start of a new two-year legislative session. To help our supporters understand where we’ve been and where we’re going next, here’s some context that underpins our policy program efforts.

Success! Revised rule breaks down barriers to hydrology-focused wetland and stream restoration practices

On June 1, 2024, we celebrated a major step forward when the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection’s (DATCP) Soil and Water Resource Management (SWRM) program updated ATCP 50 to enable the use of state funding for hydrologic restoration and stream restoration.

Focus group findings will help guide WWA actions

In 2021, WWA staff have collaborated with UW Extension Evaluation Specialists, WDNR, the WI Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP), and others to look at the benefits, barriers, and opportunities associated with increasing state and local investments in watershed-scale wetland and floodplain restoration.