ANS announces major gift for climate resilience policy & advocacy


Today, ANS announces a major gift that will expand our policy and advocacy work to rise to the challenge of climate change.

As the DC region’s oldest independent environmental organization, Audubon Naturalist Society has long adapted our mission work and priorities to respond to changing threats to nature. Today, the greatest threat to healthy communities for people and wildlife comes from climate change. And thanks to the generosity of a visionary donor, ANS can now expand our Conservation Advocates Team to respond to this climate emergency.

In partnership with our far-sighted donor and existing and new partners, ANS will leverage our regional leadership in environmental advocacy to add a focus on mitigation of, preparation for, and adaptation to climate change across the Washington, D.C. metro region. We will grow our advocacy team to add powerful voices to the local fight to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and ensure that land-use planning is both climate-smart and nature-smart.

ANS has a long track record of success advocating to reduce polluted stormwater runoff that fouls streams and floods communities – a problem that is quickly worsening because of climate change. We will build upon and replicate the approaches that have made our stormwater advocacy effective, and use proven methods of coalition building, citizen action, advocacy training and technical expertise to ramp up our climate policy impact and influence.

With this transformational gift, ANS will hire two new full-time regional Advocates – one in DC, and one in Maryland. With funds from other donors, we will also fill our newly vacant, full-time Northern Virginia advocate position. Position descriptions for each of these vacancies are available at anshome.org/careers


Green roof on New York City’s High Line. Photo credit Lance Cheung, USDA.

It’s often lost in the climate change conversation that protecting nature protects the climate. Natural climate solutions are affordable, scalable and available right now. They can deliver a full third of the solution to climate change needed by 2030. And protecting nature brings a whole host of other benefits that ANS and our members know well – livable cities, habitat for wildlife, open space for recreation and to benefit mental health, and better health outcomes for people and wildlife from clean air and clean water. Recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Special Report on 1.5°C] and the U.S. Global Change Research Program [4th National Climate Assessment] make crystal-clear what we already know. We must continue to work hard to prevent the worst impacts from climate change, but change is coming and we must prepare. In our region, “hellish heat and high water” are the two most likely — but not the only — impacts of climate change for which we must prepare people and nature. 

Two cars fell into a sinkhole on Lorton Road due to flooding, 2011. Photo credit Fairfax County, VA.

The ANS Conservation Advocates Team will seek local and regional solutions to protect nature and slow climate change including:

  • Better master planning and zoning that focuses density around transit hubs and preserves nature further out,
  • More tree canopy and green infrastructure in urban spaces, particularly in those vulnerable communities suffering from the worst climate impacts (including urban heat islands effects, high asthma rates, and forest canopy deserts),
  • Clean water policies and programs that make our drinking water systems and aquatic habitats more resilient to increased incidences of drought, flooding, and contamination brought on by stormwater runoff and exacerbated by climate impacts,
  • Enhanced regional and metro rail and bus service to reduce reliance on cars, and
  • Clean energy policy solutions at the state and local level, especially during this time when the federal government has abdicated climate responsibility. 


Our new Conservation Advocates Team will work in concert with the Conservation Director to identify and support policies that achieve these climate solutions through activism and lobbying combined with grassroots education and mobilization. ANS’s Conservation Advocates Team will provide a network hub that connects organizations around the region to amplify power. For example, by connecting climate groups with nature-stewardship groups and watershed friends’ groups, we can mobilize multiple networks and activists around common climate resilience issues.

It will be exciting to grow this team of three advocates together. As a cohort, our Conservation Advocates Team will work on regional solutions with other local partners to plan for growth, including Amazon HQ2, in a way that provides climate resilience for our land, water, and air resources. 


As ANS’ Conservation Director, I am honored and humbled by this gift and excited for what the next five years will bring. If you are interested in applying for one of our vacancies, please visit anshome.org/careers. Be sure to review our Strategic Plan, take a look at our outreach Conferences, and look back over this blog. If you are a partner or potential partner, we look forward to working with you in new and expanded ways. Please reach out with your ideas and opportunities for us to build power together to reduce and prepare for climate impacts in order to protect nature, our communities, and our future.

About Eliza Cava

Eliza Cava is the Nature Forward Director of Conservation, where she supervises our policy, advocacy, watershed community science, and conservation outreach work, and supports Woodend restoration as a demonstration landscape for the region.
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