News Release
For Immediate Release — June 16, 2008
UT Wildlife Professor Honored With Conservation Award
William Minser, right, accepts the Conservation Award from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Southeast Regional Director Sam Hamilton
For his dedicated work in shaping Tennessee Valley Authority land management policy, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has honored William G. Minser with a Southeastern Regional Director’s Conservation Award.
Minser is a research associate and instructor in the Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries with the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources with the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture. He is one of 16 individuals or groups honored by the Fish and Wildlife Service with conservation awards.
Minser has worked at the university since 1972 and has helped many students develop into professional wildlife and fisheries biologists during this time. He has also been very active in public land management policy making.
During late 2006 and early 2007, the Tennessee Valley Authority held public hearings to request input on how the agency should manage the remaining 293,000 acres of public lakeshore property on 49 public TVA reservoirs in seven southeastern states. Recent TVA land management policy had involved removing land from public use for lakeshore development. A newly expanded board of directors wanted to take a fresh look at the issue. Minser seized the opportunity to make a difference in TVA’s land management policy.
Minser was tireless in his leadership to keep the conservation community informed of the latest information regarding this TVA policy and to lead the charge in encouraging the public to respond to TVA’s request for public input. Through his direction, TVA received more than five thousand responses with more than ninety-two percent of those calling for public lakeshore property to remain undeveloped and in public ownership. As a result, the new TVA board voted to prohibit the further sale of lakeshore property for residential development.
To recognize Minser’s leadership in shaping TVA land management policy on 293,000 acres and his dedication to natural resources, the Fish and Wildlife Service tapped him with the Regional Director’s Conservation Award.
More information on Minser is available at http://fwf.ag.utk.edu/personnel/bminser.htm
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Contact: Margot Emery, (865) 974-7141