The southeastern United States is a biodiversity hotspot, leading the nation in diversity of freshwater fishes, mussels, and crayfishes and like much of the world, is also deeply threatened by the species erosion plaguing our planet. The Tennessee Wildlife Federation estimates that approximately 90 percent of the state is privately owned, which reiterates the significance of integrating private landowners and communities in conservation action planning. Little detailed research exists on how to successfully engage the rural communities in the southeastern United States in conservation behavior change, prompting the question for this study. The objective is to establish connections with farmers and managers in priority watersheds on a section of the Cumberland Plateau (Walden Ridge) and assess their understanding of and relationship with conservation land management practices. As part of a collaborative partnership, a community engagement strategy has been developed using social-ecological systems as a framework to address complex conservation challenges where people and nature are intertwined. Preliminary qualitative data has been collected using multiple methods. For information about the subject as a whole, a review of published literature and archival materials were reviewed and informal semi-structured interviews with targeted community leaders were conducted. For more detailed information about the local community members’ perspectives, a community meeting was held as a listening session with pre and post evaluation questions. Listening sessions have produced benefits to participants while also providing valuable findings to the researchers. The prevailing message of this research has been to understand the audience and not to assume the community is a problem to be solved but rather an asset to be utilized.