Introducing
Ground Shift
Ground Shift helps develop creative, durable, and transformative ideas to shape the next century of public land and water stewardship in the United States. We do this by supporting, convening, and connecting people from a wide range of backgrounds and political beliefs who want a healthy future for our lands and waters and are willing to challenge the status quo.
At Ground Shift, we believe that America’s public lands and waters are essential to our health, prosperity, culture, and democracy. We also believe that the policies, laws, and agencies that guide the management of America’s lands and waters are no longer equipped to meet the challenges of our time.
We need big ideas and a bold vision that get us more — not less — of what people need from our public lands and waters: more parks, more clean water and clean air, more abundant wildlife, more energy and basic materials, more collaboration with Tribal Nations in stewarding their ancestral homelands, more of our forests and rivers restored to health; and a more equitable distribution of nature’s benefits. Solutions that are good for our land, water, and people.
How do we build a brighter future for our public lands, waters, and everyone who depends on them? By looking for good ideas everywhere, welcoming new perspectives and new voices, and encouraging dialogue, creative thinking, and collaboration across partisan labels, geographies, and perspectives. Join us.
How we work
Ground Shift is based on a simple idea: the immense challenges facing America’s public lands and waters today cannot be solved with yesterday’s playbook. We need ideas that are big enough, innovative enough, and transformative enough to meet the needs of our time.
To develop and drive the ground-breaking ideas that will shape the next century for our public lands and waters, we need to encourage risk-taking, invest in cutting-edge thinking, and leverage expertise and creativity across the political spectrum, across geographies, and across stakeholder groups.
Ground Shift promotes bold, cross-partisan solutions for the future of America’s public lands and waters.
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Ground Shift supports the work of innovators and thought-leaders who are willing to challenge the status quo. We publish and promote compelling writings, convene dialogues on important topics, and lift up the ideas and perspectives of people who challenge us to think more deeply about the future we want for our public lands and waters.
How should we manage our public lands and waters to meet the needs of current and future generations? And what changes to our laws, policies, institutions, and budgetary priorities are needed to secure that future?
Ground Shift will help lift up a range of answers to these questions. In fact, people who contribute to Ground Shift may disagree with other perspectives being offered. Consensus is not a requirement. But we do need to create a space for big new ideas to be developed and debated, and where we can collectively find the courage and creativity to build what comes next.
HISTORY
This isn’t the first project of its kind. Over the past 150 years, the United States has commissioned four formal reviews that reshaped public lands policy. Most recently, in 1970, the bipartisan Public Land Law Review Commission published a 342-page report, called One-Third of the Nation’s Land, after seven years of study, hearings, and public input. Their recommendations informed, inspired, and shaped the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) that has guided public land policy and management for the past half century.
We can, and we must, develop an equally ambitious and strategic playbook to shape the future of America’s public lands and waters.
Guiding principles
To develop solutions for our public lands and waters and wildlife that are durable, practical, and rooted in the public interest, we need to build a wide table that welcomes a wide range of perspectives. The following principles, therefore, guide Ground Shift’s work:
- Ground Shift promotes a culture of respect in dialogues, discussions, and exchanges.
- Ground Shift does not engage in partisanship or promote partisan attacks.
- Ground Shift focuses on new ideas and a vision for the future, not on current events.
Ground Shift is founded on the belief that discussion, dialogue, and disagreement are necessary to the success of this project. Strength in our democracy comes from sharing wide-ranging perspectives and open debate.
Who we are
The Advisory Council
Ground Shift is led by a cross-partisan group of thought-leaders united by a shared goal: advancing the bold, structural changes needed to secure a healthy future for our nation’s public lands, waters, and communities.
Jim Enote
Jim Enote is the CEO of the Colorado Plateau Foundation, serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Grand Canyon Trust, is a Governing Council Member for the Wilderness Society, board member for the Trust for Mutual Understanding, and is a Carnegie Foundation Senior Fellow and National Geographic Explorer. He lives in his hometown, Zuni, New Mexico.
Charlotte Hudson
Charlotte Hudson is the executive director of the Blue Convergence Fund, a philanthropic nonprofit that advances the sustainability of global oceans and coasts by connecting knowledge, communities, and governance through strategic grantmaking and engagement initiatives. Previously, she spent two decades at The Pew Charitable Trusts leading the Lenfest Ocean Program, with a career and body of publications focused on strengthening the links between science, policy, and equitable, impact-driven philanthropy.
Rue Mapp
Rue Mapp is the founder and CEO of Outdoor Afro, a national not-for-profit that celebrates and inspires Black leadership in nature. What started as a blog became a powerful movement connecting tens of thousands of people annually in over 70 U.S. cities through guided hikes, conservation efforts, and outdoor experiences rooted in joy, culture, and belonging.
Ed Norton, Sr.
Ed Norton is Founding Chair Emeritus of the Conservation Lands Foundation. He has served as Special Counsel and Deputy Executive Director of The Wilderness Society, founding President of the Grand Canyon Trust, founding Chair of The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, Vice President for Law and Public Policy for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Senior Advisor to The Nature Conservancy's China Program and Deputy Director for the Asia-Pacific Region, and Senior Advisor for Environment/Social/Governance with TPG Capital.
John Podesta
John Podesta served as senior adviser to President Joe Biden for clean energy innovation and implementation, counselor to President Barack Obama, and chief of staff to President William J. Clinton. He is the founder and the chairman of the board of directors of the Center for American Progress and a longtime champion for the stewardship of America’s public lands and ocean.
Mark Rey
Mark E. Rey served as USDA Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment under President George W. Bush, where he oversaw programs at the Forest Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service, following a long career on Capitol Hill as senior staff for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee and in the private sector. Mark currently teaches at Michigan State University as Executive in Residence and consults as part of the Livingston Group.
Shantha Ready Alonso
Shantha Ready Alonso is the executive director of the America the Beautiful for All Coalition, which is the largest, most representative collective in the United States working at the intersection of conservation, environmental justice, and public health. Previously, Shantha worked for Secretary Deb Haaland at the U.S. Department of the Interior and she led faith-based organizations' engagement in public policy.
Theodore Roosevelt IV
Theodore Roosevelt IV is a managing director in Investment Banking, serving as Chairman of the firm’s Clean Tech Initiative. He is also a board member of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), a trustee of the Climate Reality Project, a member of the Governing Council of the Wilderness Society, and a trustee for the American Museum of Natural History.
Lynn Scarlett
Lynn Scarlett served from 2001-2009 at the U.S. Department of the Interior, including as Deputy Secretary and Acting Secretary. Subsequently, she was a global external affairs chief at The Nature Conservancy until retirement in December 2021. She currently chairs the National Wildlife Refuge Association Board.
Tracy Stone-Manning
Tracy is president of The Wilderness Society, where she continues her work as a longtime conservationist and public lands advocate. Prior to joining The Wilderness Society, Tracy served as director of the Bureau of Land Management, the nation’s largest land management agency.
‘Aulani Wilhelm
‘Aulani Wilhelm is the CEO at Nia Tero, an international organization dedicated to Indigenous Peoples’ guardianship and the role Indigenous Peoples have played — and continue to play — in protecting lands, waters, and ocean areas. ʻAulani has spent her career bridging culture, community, and science to drive innovations in ocean policy and governance. Prior to joining Nia Tero, she served as the Assistant Director for Ocean Conservation, Climate and Equity at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Brian Yablonski
Brian Yablonski is the chief executive officer of the Bozeman, Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center, the nation's leading organization for bringing market and incentive-based solutions to conservation. He is also the former chairman of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, a board member of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, and a professional member of the Boone and Crockett Club.
Our Partners
Ground Shift is proud to partner with academic institutions that are leaders in public land and water policy and law. Through these partnerships, Ground Shift supports convenings and events that focus on public land and water policy, elevates emerging ideas and scholarship that deserve more attention, and creates opportunities for scholars and students to share their expertise and ideas with policy-makers. Our partners include:
University of Arizona
James E. Rogers College of Law
Environmental Law, Science, & Policy Program
Colorado State University Salazar Center for North American Conservation
University of Colorado Law School Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment
Emmett Environmental Law Center
at Harvard Law School
University of Montana Bolle Center for People & Forests
University of Pennsylvania
Penn Washington
University of Utah Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources, and the Environment
Our Team
Ground Shift is operated by a small team that provides support for convenings, events, and writings that advance new thinking and dialogue about the future of America’s public lands and waters. This team includes:
Matt Lee-Ashley
Executive Director
Matt started his career on the backroads and highways of his home state of Colorado, helping a U.S. Senator build an agenda that reflected the voices and priorities of every town and county, no matter how big or small. In the two decades since, Matt has worked to advance community-developed solutions to land, water, and resource challenges through public service in the White House, the Department of the Interior, and Congress.
Chase Huntley
Managing Director
Chase followed his passion for wild public lands from Kansas across the nation before landing in Washington, DC. For nearly thirty years he has worked to find common-sense solutions to challenging problems, leading oversight investigations at the Government Accountability Office and a Republican-led Congressional committee, supporting Forest Service leadership under a Democratic president and directing policy advocacy at a national non-profit conservation organization where he helped bring together industry, local governments and conservation to build a vision for how to responsibly site clean energy on public lands.