Ways to Get Involved

Whether you want to further conservation, learn more about nature or share your love of the outdoors, you’ve come to the right place. National wildlife refuges provide many opportunities for you to help your community and fish and wildlife by doing what you love.

National wildlife refuges partner with volunteers, youth groups, landowners, neighbors, and residents of urban and coastal communities to make a lasting difference.

Find out how you can help make American lands healthier and communities stronger while doing something personally satisfying.

  • Volunteers: Gain new experiences and meet new people while helping to advance wildlife conservation.
  • Friends: Join neighbors in helping refuges restore habitat and expand access to green space.
  • Landowners: Learn how you can partner with the Fish and Wildlife Service to voluntarily restore land.
  • Local Groups: Find out how communities can work with refuges better for wildlife and people.
  • Youth: Explore paid and unpaid opportunities to learn and develop leadership skills.

Our Partners

Nature does not recognize human-made boundaries. In order to conserve our natural and cultural resources effectively, we must work with others to bridge these boundaries. Partnerships foster creative solutions to challenging situations and often the results are greater than the sum of the parts.  Learn more about our local partners.

The Nebraska Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program (NE PFW Program) first began in 1989. Our mission is to conserve, protect, and enhance fish and wildlife and their habitats on private (non-federal) lands. Technical and financial assistance is provided to landowners who voluntarily restore wetlands and other fish and wildlife habitat on their land. The objective of the Nebraska PFW Program is to work cooperatively with landowners and other partners throughout the State to restore and maintain habitat for Federal trust species. Partners include landowners, other Federal agencies, State and local governments, conservation organizations, academic institutions, businesses, and private individuals.

Although our program covers the entire state, there are eight main focus areas where we conduct the majority of our work, including the Sandhills, the North Platte River, the Central Platte River, Eastern Tallgrass Prairie, the Loess Canyons, and the Rainwater Basins.

The Nebraska Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program is primarily interested in the restoration or enhancement of wetlands, streams, and upland grasslands for the benefit of grassland dependent species. Typically, landowners contact the Nebraska PFW program regarding an opportunity to enhance a grazing system, restore a degraded wetland or stream channel on their property. In certain cases, historic modifications to streams and wetlands in order to facilitate haying of wet meadows resulted in accelerated erosion and lowering of the water table. Restoration projects focus on raising the water table back to level that renews forage production and improves wetland habitat for fish and wildlife.

Grazing projects focus on financially and technically assisting a landowner develop a planned grazing system that involves a moderate graze, followed by long periods of rest. This type of shift in management typically requires infrastructure, such as fencing or pipeline, resulting in significant costs. The Nebraska PFW program works closely with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Sandhills Task Force (STF), and the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission (NGPC) on grazing projects that result in considerable gains in wildlife habitat and increased profitability for the ranch.

Additionally, the Nebraska PFW participates in projects involving removal of invasive species invasive species
An invasive species is any plant or animal that has spread or been introduced into a new area where they are, or could, cause harm to the environment, economy, or human, animal, or plant health. Their unwelcome presence can destroy ecosystems and cost millions of dollars.

Learn more about invasive species , such as eastern red cedar trees and Russian olives trees. More recently, the Nebraska PFW program has initiated several projects aimed at removing common carp from Sandhills lakes and wetlands.