Wes and Kendra Swee have been named Conservationist of the Year for their contributions to Maramec Spring Park, where he serves as the Park Director and she is the Interpretive Services Coordinator.

The award is the highest Conservation Achievement Award given out by the Conservation Federation of Missouri. The pair were nominated by outdoor writer Bill Cooper, who Wes Swee said recognized the amount of work they do behind the scenes to benefit the park.

The Swees both started their careers in conservation after they graduated from Truman State University. Wes Swee worked in fish hatcheries for 17 years, coming to Maramec Spring Park in 2008. Kendra Swee, who studied biology and education, worked in naturalist positions at various state parks before starting at Maramec in 2019, where the pair have worked together since.

They say the award feels like a culmination of all the projects they’ve worked on over the years together. One of the most extensive projects they’ve spearheaded is the Pollinator Initiative.

Since 2019, they’ve been working to transform 150 acres of fields into native pollinator habitat, which benefits the park’s entire ecosystem. They’ve planted 67 acres so far.

“The interesting thing about becoming the director of the James Foundation is you bring a lot of your past experiences to what you want to do here at the park,” Wes Swee said. “And so my background being conservation, I saw this 1,800-acre park as kind of an open palette to do all sorts of native landscaping.”

Through the restoration process, a prairie habitat is being re-established in the area. Before the Swees started the initiative, turkey and quail hadn’t been present in the park for decades. 

After a year, the first turkey had returned. 

After two years, they walked out of the park’s café and heard a quail calling from the field. 

“It goes way beyond just the bees and the butterflies,” Kendra Swee said. “It’s building the whole ecosystem.”

The project has been supported and funded by the Conservation Federation of Missouri, the National Wildlife Federation and the New York Community Trust. They’ve also collaborated with local farmers to help prepare the fields.

“It really kind of just changed the whole mindset of how the James Foundation was taking care of Maramec Spring Park,” Wes Swee said. “It was very, very focused on just the fisheries aspect of it, just the trout fisherman…so once we got in, we’re like, let’s not just focus on this. We have this whole park that we can utilize and put in trails for the public to walk around the park and explore more than just around the spring branch itself.”

Wes and Kendra Swee both gave credit to the park’s staff members, who they said have been committed to the often taxing work of invasive species control throughout the park. They conduct 200 acres of brush management control every year, which involves venturing into the woods with a backpack sprayer and dousing each individual plant.

“Changing a habitat takes a long time,” Kendra Swee said. “Yes, if you have pristine conditions, three years, but you know, we’re fighting invasive plants coming off of the highway and the roadsides, and so it’s been five years. It’s not perfect yet, but it’s going to be a lifelong process.”

Seeing the impact they’re making in the park and in their community is what keeps them going. Because Maramec Spring Park sees so many visitors each year, Wes Swee said he’s been able to watch community members implement environmentally friendly techniques they learn at the park in their own backyards or on their farms.

In addition to the Pollinator Initiative, they’ve conducted bumblebee surveys, monarch tagging, bluebird nest monitoring and bird counts. They also implemented a 2022 forestry management plan that included timber harvest, brush management and invasive species control.

The pair has engaged local students through the Hatchet program, teaching campfire building, orienteering and shelter construction, in addition to hosting community events like maple syrup days, the Pollinator Festival and volunteer planting days.

“We never stop learning,” Kendra Swee said. “There’s always new things that we learn. We go to conferences, we go to trainings. You know, even at 20-some years into our career, we’re still learning new things.”