Anne Gage

Anne Gage is Director of Conservation Programs for WWF's Northern Great Plains Program, based in Montana. In this role, Anne develops strategies for conserving grasslands in a time of tremendous change. Conversion of grasslands for food, fuel and fiber is one of the leading issues affecting the Northern Great Plains ecoregion, and combatting it requires a thoughtful approach that combines community-based conservation, science, policy and communication. Anne directs the work of the team’s Sustainable Ranching Initiative, Tribal Program, Black-footed Ferret Recovery Effort and Science Program to track the loss of grasslands, understand the impact of the drivers of conversion on people and wildlife, recover species and build resilient communities. Anne grew up in the middle of the prairie in Kansas—Go Jayhawks!—and knows first-hand how conversion has changed the prairie landscape. She attended the University of Kansas for her undergraduate degrees and studied the role of seed banks in sunflower populations. She then took a detour out of the grasslands to investigate the impacts of climate change on treeline forests in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, as well as working for the National Park Service's Inventory and Monitoring Program in the Greater Yellowstone Region. This was followed by work at the Instituto Nacional de Technologia Agropecuaria in Argentina to study the impact of crop agriculture and pesticide use on birds. She then returned to the grasslands and joined World Wildlife Fund's Northern Great Plains Program.