Gary Myers, the retiring Executive Director of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, will be going to work for the newly-created Partnership for Southern Forestland Conservation.

According to a release from the new group, more people and changing land uses are threatening the future of the South's forests, and a group of conservation partners have united to "Keep Forests as Forests." The Partnership for Southern Forestland Conservation was created last year after several forest conservation and management organization met to discuss this growing concern about the future sustainability of the large tracts of forestland in the South.

Today they announced the hiring of two leaders in the organization.

Gary Myers, one of the longest serving leaders of a state conservation agency, will join the Partnership as Co-Director. Myers has been associated with the TWRA since 1974 when he came to Tennessee following 11 years with the Colorado Division of Wildlife. He was named TWRA Executive Director in 1978 and just recently celebrated his 30th anniversary in this position. Widely recognized by his peers and conservation organizations throughout the country, Myers has received numerous honors during his acclaimed career.

Brian Dangler, The Conservation Fund's Eastern Director of Acquisitions and Finance, joins the Partnership as co-director with Myers. Dangler has 20 years of experience managing forest lands with Boise Cascade and then International Paper (IP) in the northeast as well as leading major land sales and development projects for IP throughout the country.

"We are especially fortunate to have leaders like Gary and Brian ­ two of the most accomplished professionals in the conservation and land management business," said Carlton Owen, CEO and President of the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities.

"The purpose of this Partnership is to develop innovative approaches to ensure the permanent conservation of forest cover in large forested blocks in the Southeast to achieve a variety of societal, economic and environmental benefits," said Paul Trianosky of The Nature Conservancy.

The Partnership operates as a broad coalition of collaborators bringing together the strengths of each to focus energy and efforts to increase the retention of working forest landscapes across the southeastern United States. The goal of the Partnership is to coordinate actions to result in the protection of up to 20 million additional acres by 2020.

Organizations currently represented in this Partnership include The Nature Conservancy, The Conservation Fund, U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, U.S. Forest Service, Southern Group of State Foresters and the Department of Defense.

This type of conservation work is critical and urgent, according to Ken Arney, Deputy Regional Forester, State and Private Forestry, for the Southern Region of the U.S. Forest Service.

"Our studies suggest that as much as 44 million acres of forestland will be converted to other uses by 2030, and that most of this will occur in the Southeast," he said.

"Large intact forests provide numerous environmental benefits for plants, animals and humans," said Mike Clutter, dean and Hargreaves professor of forest finance at the University of Georgia's Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. "Quality of life for many will diminish if this trend is not reversed. Many of the large, contiguous forestland ownerships have changed hands in recent years, increasing, in many cases, the probability of their eventual fragmentation and resale into smaller parcels. These smaller parcels create unique and challenging conservation situations in many cases."