Current Priorities
What We Do
Conservation Minnesota’s mission is protecting the Minnesota you love by solving our state’s most important conservation problems.
We are committed to protecting people and places from the adverse impacts of pollution and climate change while ensuring that everyone who calls Minnesota home has access to the Great Outdoors and opportunities to enjoy it. Our work is centered around bringing people together across regions, backgrounds, and beliefs to find real solutions. We start by listening and then turn our shared love of Minnesota into the laws that protect our communities and natural resources.
We believe in a future in which a person’s health is not negatively impacted by their zip code and in which people of every ability, ethnicity, gender, and geographic region have safe opportunities to explore the beauty and wonder of Minnesota’s Great Outdoors. We approach our work with a commitment to equity and a passion for using the tools of democracy to foster civic engagement and make lasting, systemic change to improve people’s lives for generations to come.
We know we need to do more than point out what’s wrong to create the future we envision. Solving a problem happens only when enough people agree on a new way to do things. It’s about Getting to Yes.
We bring people together across differences to find the intersections of shared values, needs, and experiences to create a statewide network committed to stewardship of our Great Outdoors. We start all conversations by understanding each person’s unique interests.
We provide clear and accurate information about problems and practical solutions. For 20 years we’ve been a trusted source of information for Minnesotans about conservation issues, and we remain dedicated to empowering Minnesotans with the information they need to make decisions for their families and communities.
We engage individuals, communities, and partner organizations to design and implement common sense solutions. Our relationships start with understanding the goals and concerns of others. Through reflection and action, we build trusting relationships that power long-term and successful partnerships, particularly with those who may not think of themselves as part of the traditional environmental community.
We help people learn and grow as conservation leaders at all levels—from students to state legislators. As we build relationships, we ignite and cultivate the spark of leadership in Minnesotans through our shared love for the people and places that define our state.
We focus our network on the right policies, at the right time, using the right strategies for success. We work with a diverse, bipartisan array of partners to develop public policy solutions at the local and state level because we understand—regardless of which party is in the majority—it takes consistent, forward progress to create the sustainable communities and environment Minnesota needs.
We are committed to making our government’s systems and decisions accessible and transparent to all Minnesotans. We follow key legislation, track state environmental funding, and deliver accountability by reporting the actions of elected leaders to their constituents.
Our over 10,000 lakes, natural resources, and four distinct seasons help define life in Minnesota. Together we can work to protect our lakes and land for the next generation.
