He starts his speech talking about a turtle perched on a fence post, and some of the people who are there to honor him wonder where this strange image will take them.
Then, with a smile, he points out a simple fact.
“You know she didn’t get up there on her own.”
This is Dave Livermore’s way. Protecting the environment, preserving landscapes, etching out a legacy in a quiet way that has made an indelible footprint in the West.
He is the first to say the work is not a “me thing,” but a “we thing.”
Livermore has been associated with The Nature Conservancy in Utah and Nevada for 44 years, starting when he was hired to oversee the efforts of the organization in the Western region of the United States.
By 1995, he was in charge of the Utah state program for The Nature Conservancy.
He recently officially retired in 2024 and was honored Tuesday amid wetlands on the eastern shores of a terminal body of salt water people are so desperately trying to save. It was, and is, Livermore’s vision to lift up this unique landscape that has been so often overlooked, criticized and misunderstood. The Great Salt Lake.
During his long tenure, Livermore and the strength of this organization accomplished a few notable things, including:
- Founded both TNC’s Utah and Nevada chapters
- Protected more than 1 million acres of land in Utah and 500,000 acres in Nevada
- Led 240 conservation projects in Utah alone
- Raised $303 million in private and public funds across eight campaigns
- Established iconic preserves, including the Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve, and the Scott and Norma Matheson Wetlands Preserve near Moab
- Purchased and protected the historic Dugout Ranch, a working cattle ranch that is also home to the Canyon Lands Research Center
The environment in a polarized world
In Utah and many states in the West, “environment” is often a dirty word. It’s a loud, chaotic, emotionally-driven topic. On a variety of levels and with deep passion, so often, the sky is falling. Many members of the GOP rail against federal control while boundless nongovernmental organizations scream that Utah and other states would like to see the land, the water and the air ravaged by eliminating federal oversight. There are endless lawsuits on both sides.
And in the middle is The Nature Conservancy.
“Conservation is an ugly business, a dirty business. There is some heartbreak and there is more of that than triumph,” said Chris Brown, who runs the Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve. The preserve spans more than 4,000 acres on the western edge of Davis County and was pieced together over the years with land acquisitions that encompass a swath of land so critical to migratory birds.
It is a place of nature not marred by development and it’s an opportunity to go bird-watching and frog hearing, and to find quiet repose. Under the tutelage of Livermore and others with The Nature Conservancy, the preserve grew and was saved for generations now and in the future.
“Resilient,” Brown said, when asked what word best describes Livermore, who tirelessly fought for decades to protect this landscape and others.
The Great Salt Lake is described as an “avian oasis,” a haven for more than 12 million birds representing 359 species.
“They are the most thankful,” Brown said. “But they can’t speak, they can’t tell you this.”
The Nature Conservancy and the National Audubon Society were picked by the state of Utah to shepherd a $40 million trust to help the Great Salt Lake, which saw its levels drop to a historic low in 2022.
Livermore said there has been an awakening in Utah about the lake’s importance.
“There’s an increasing awareness,” he said. “It’s changed. The importance of this lake, the landscape has increased visibly.”
Drought. Diversions. Saving a terminal saltwater lake is no easy thing.
Livermore said it has been a collective effort to turn the spotlight on helping the Great Salt Lake.
“I have been the luckiest conservationist.”
— Dave Livermore
While he insists it is not a “me thing,” he does deserve some singular recognition, as much as he is is embarrassed over the accolades that come his way.
“It is amazing to me and many people how he can do so much good with a single vision,” said Hank Hemingway, a board member of The Nature Conservancy in Utah.
“He is so understated and deserves so much more than this plaque,” Hemingway said, gesturing to the homage to Livermore that was unveiled appropriately at the preserve on Earth Day.
“I’d love to have the talent he has.”
The ‘Dave Livermore effect’
That is how Hemingway describes it. And so do many others.
“I’ve known him since he first started,” said Steve Trimble, an accomplished writer, photographer and conservationist who shares Livermore’s passion.
“He was a young, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed guy working out of his car and I was working out of my pickup truck.”
They stumbled across each in a parking lot in Nevada and from there, the friendship developed in their common passion for conservation.
“He’s kind and savvy. He is always the first to thank everybody. He’s really good at kicking the tires of all sorts of people,” Trimble said.
That was the time when you carried a pocket full of dimes to slip into a payphone, long before the internet and glossy campaigns to raise money for this cause or that. It was a time when you got out of the office away from the rotary phone and walked in the dirt to explore the landscape, get connected and find a way to draw others in.
There are powerful, monumental efforts that are carried out today, to be sure, but in the 1980s, it was a different time of shaking hands and having long conservations, rubbing shoulders and sometimes inching in enough to change someone’s mind.
Over the years, Livermore has had candid conservations with Interior secretaries, Washington politicians and actors.
Lynn de Freitas, executive director of Friends of the Great Salt Lake, gave credence to Livermore and The Nature Conservancy for its ability to get things done.
“I have always admired The Nature Conservancy for its effectiveness,” she said. Both Livermore and Chris Montague, another retiree of the organization with an esteemed legacy in preservation, were instilled with a passion for the Great Salt Lake decades before it landed on the radar of so many others, she added.
“They recognized the Great Salt Lake and the wetlands and the landscape as a gift,” and knew the threats posed by the growing population.
Mark Brisky, a development program specialist with The Nature Conservancy, said that, simply put, Livermore has been legendary within the sphere of the organization.
“He has been so important for what we have done in Utah and Nevada,” Brisky said. “He is an ambassador; he is that person to bring people together to be in that kind of space. We all know that, but the birds, they don’t know.”
In effect, Livermore has been their voice for the past 44 years.
At age 69, Livermore says he is going to take some time to travel, enjoy more years with his wife, Rebecca, and their standard poodle, Bodie.
He recalled that his uncle John, a geologist, was associated with the Carlin Trend in northeastern Nevada, the largest and most productive gold mine in North America.
His uncle told him to be a successful geologist, you had to be a lucky one.
Livermore, again shrugging off the accolades, told this story to his admirers.
“I have been the luckiest conservationist.”