Project Manager 
 
Nat Miller is the Director of Conservation for National Audubon’s Upper Mississippi Flyway and Great Lakes Region. Nat holds a M.A. in International Environmental Policy from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. After earning his degree, he spent seven years working in the Caribbean and Central America managing parks and establishing protected area policy before joining Audubon in 2014. Nat now leads a conservation and science team that looks to birds to inform ecosystem management. Audubon’s Great Lakes Initiative launched in 2016, has ambitious goals to restore and protect the waters of the Great Lakes and thousands of acres of coastal areas that provide important habitat for hundreds of species of migratory land birds and breeding marsh birds, both of which have experienced significant declines in population over the past several decades. Monitoring efforts and landscape planning projects led by Nat in Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan over the past two years have garnered over $2 million and hundreds of acres in Audubon restoration projects.  
 
Organization Description 
Audubon protects birds and the places they need, today and tomorrow. For more than a century, Audubon has built a legacy of conservation success by mobilizing the strength of its network to connect people with nature and empower them to protect it. A potent combination of science, education, and policy expertise merges in efforts ranging from protection and restoration of local habitats to the implementation of policies that safeguard birds, other wildlife, and the resources that sustain us all.  
Our work, guided by our 2016-2020 strategic plan, is organized by 5 key conservation priorities:  
- Coasts – Protect the most important breeding, stopover, and wintering sites for birds. Protect San Francisco Bay, Delaware River Basin, Arctic and Gulf of Mexico. Implement and influence adaptation strategies for 300,000 acres of coastal wetlands and marshes.  
- Working Lands – Collaborate with landowners, land managers, government agencies, and private industry to increase the quality of habitat on privately managed lands. Protect Greater Sage-Grouse conservation plans, California’s Central Valley and Eastern Forests, and make one billion acres of working lands do double duty as bird habitat.  
- Water – Engage the public on issues surrounding water rights and water quality; restore habitats along rivers, wetlands, and deltas. Restore Salton Sea, Colorado River Basin, Great Lakes and the Everglades, and activate 40,000 advocates on water conservation measures.  
- Climate – Protect the places that birds need by encouraging efforts at the local, state and federal levels that mitigate impacts of a changing climate on bird habitat and migratory patterns. Engage 100,000 Americans to plant 1 million native plants to benefit climate-threatened birds.  
- Bird-Friendly Communities – Utilize our network across thousands of communities to make them healthy and safe for birds including planting 10 million native plants for birds.  
Audubon’s national, state, and local work is coordinated and mutually reinforcing. Field offices serve as local organizing points for conservation objectives, policy goals, and activation of our 1 million members and 463 chapters, allowing Audubon to be local everywhere.