Ducks Unlimited & Conservation

Conservation is the planned protection, restoration, and management of a natural resource to ensure its sustainable use and enjoyment by current and future generations.

Ducks Unlimited since 1937 has conserved more than 15.5 million acres of wetlands and grasslands that provide essential habitat for breeding, migrating, and wintering waterfowl. The need is urgent: more than 50% of historical wetland area across the United States has been drained, degraded, or converted to alternative uses.

Ducks Unlimited conservation falls into three categories. Protecting healthy intact wetlands with conservation easements or purchases, enhancing existing wetlands or wetlands that have been degraded, and restoring wetlands in areas where they historically existed but have been drained or hydrologically altered.

Every Ducks Unlimited conservation project is completed with support of other entities. We work with federal and state government agencies on public land, local municipalities, other conservation groups as well as private landowners. Cooperation is crucial to impact conservation on a large scale. 

Ducks Unlimited takes a continental, landscape approach to wetlands conservation. While DU works in all 50 states, we focus on landscapes most beneficial to waterfowl. Ducks Unlimited is a science-driven organization, using data on wetlands, water and waterfowl to guide our work. Ducks Unlimited employs waterfowl biologists, wetland scientists, and engineers that work together to design and oversee the delivery of priority habitat conservation projects.