Over the past few months, Conservation Advocacy Specialist Trinity Mills has been attending education and networking events for Our Common Agenda hosted by the Virginia Conservation Network in preparation for the 2023 General Assembly. Our Common Agenda is a handbook of practical state policy solutions that further vital conservation goals in the following areas: Land & Wildlife Conservation, Land Use & Transportation, Clean Water & Flood Resilience, Climate & Energy, and Good Governance. The General Assembly session convened on January 11th, and since then many bills and budget amendments that have a stake in the well-being of wildlife in Loudoun County continue to be heard.
On Tuesday, January 31, we attended Virginia Conservation Network’s Conservation Lobby Day. At this annual advocacy event, environmental organizations from across the state met with their state representatives to advocate for VCN’s Our Common Agenda and lobby for the support of bills and budget amendments to protect our environment.
Trinity and Michael Myers represented Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy, meeting with both Senator Jennifer Boysko and Delegate Wendy Gooditis to urge support for a number of relevant bills and budget amendments that would promote better wildlife protection and land management in Loudoun County.
Visit Virginia Conservation Network’s Our Common Agenda website to see the policy solution handbook and all related information. View Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy’s compilation of our own priority policy solutions, pulled from Our Common Agenda.
The briefs we provided to Senator Boysko and Delegate Gooditis which included a fact sheet of our top priority bills and budget items can be found here: brief for Senator Boysko and brief for Delegate Gooditis.