NFWF Honors Walmart for More Than 20 Years of Conservation through Acres for America

00:02 

John Furner: For me, being outside is something I've always done, always craved. I grew up in Rogers, Arkansas. It was a really small town. I spent a lot of summers with my grandfather on his farm in southern central Arkansas and the Arkansas Rivers. One of the things we think about Walmart, of course we want to run a great business, and we want to make sure that the world is better because of the things we do. About 20 years ago, we decided we would purchase and then contribute one acre for every acre we developed. And if we would have just hit the number, it would have been about 100,000 acres. And here we are 20 years later, and it's about 20 to 1. I have a really hard time even getting my head around 100,000 acres, more or less 2 million acres. Yeah, it's so much more progress than we had imagined.

00:44

Voiceover: Over two decades and more than 2 million acres, one program has quietly become the leading public-private land conservation partnership in the United States. A groundbreaking effort to conserve America's most important landscapes while strengthening the communities that depend on them. From Alaska to California, New Mexico, Michigan. in South Carolina's Lowcountry, where one of Acres for America's latest projects is unfolding along the banks of the ecologically rich Black River. 

01:21

Chris West: We kind of look at these sort of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, 64,000 acres, so it's almost 100 square miles of conservation in this one project alone.

01:30

This is a great example of public-private partnerships where you've got state agencies, private timber companies, local communities, conservation groups, the wildlife element, the wildlife community coming together and saying this is an important place. 

01:42

Ryan Pettigrew: This is a really big conservation easement that includes working forestry lands, but then also some really important watershed with the Pee Dee and Black River. I don't think this is unusual for Acres for America. It almost encompasses an array of different types of projects we see all over the United States. So it's large landscape scale conservation. But it is working lands conservation that'll stay productive for the economy. And additionally, it's public access. It really hits all the check marks. 

02:19 

Pettigrew: So today we had the pleasure of having a local Walmart associate join us here. 

Ryan Mann: Absolutely stunning. 

Pettigrew: So it's just cool to see that come to fruition and how it impacts the lives of our associates and customers locally.

02:33

Mann: I can't imagine what it would be like if all of our low country river systems and natural forest had been just overdeveloped. This is a staple part of not just the low country, but our local way of life. You know, a lot of us grew up out here on the river hunting, fishing, and we're tied to the water and the natural scenery down here. It should be important to everybody to have large acreage like this secure to preserve not only the wildlife, but, you know, the cypress trees that you see run into the water here, they help filter the entire water column all the way back to the ocean. Spending time out here on the water and nature is just something that we can't beat, and I'm proud to work for a company that's participating and preserving this as best we can.

03:11

Furner: Every community has its own personality and its way of contributing to this great country that we're a part of, and so programs like this preserve their ability to exist. I'm always proud to be a Walmart associate, and this is just one more reason. I'm proud each and every day to get to come in and represent so many great people across the country and know that I'm part of an organization who cares about things like this.