Conserving the Future: Wildlife Refuges and the Next Generation

Since July of last summer, five teams of employees from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been collaborating on draft vision documents in the areas of conservation planning, delivery, and science; relevance to a changing America; and leadership and organizational excellence. Throughout the fall, our partners at the National Wildlife Refuge Association interviewed different groups of folks ranging from members of Friends organizations to known conservation leaders about their thoughts on the future of the National Wildlife Refuge System.

Now the teams – known as the Core Teams – have put together revised draft vision documents based on the feedback and discussions from an in-person meeting they had in Madison, Wisconsin back in November. These documents are posted in the various Groups for the Core Teams (see the Groups Directory for a complete list and links to each Group).
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Public outreach around the vision process continues and I’m finding added benefits to engaging other groups and citizens in the discussion about wildlife conservation and vision for the USFWS’s Refuge System. This week Joan, my NWRA colleague, and I met with folks at the National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF).

Have you engaged members of your community in the vision dialogue? Are you talking to folks who are not a “traditional” partner and do you have any suggestions for outreach?

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I don’t think I have ever seen a forum within government — whether local, state or federal — that is as unfettered as this Conserving the Future web site.  So use this forum – well before a comprehensive vision document is assembled in mid- to late January – to put forward your bold ideas.  We’re listening.

About 300 people have joined the Web site.  More are joining every day.  First, encourage your friends and colleagues to join.  The more people who are within the social network, the more ideas we generate.

Second, don’t just follow the conversation:  make your voice heard.  Your comments don’t have to be long.  They don’t necessarily have to be direct comments about the Core Teams’ papers.  Your push-the-envelope ideas, stated in simple language, is just what we are looking for.

The same thoughtful interaction that we’re seeing right now within the online Core Team forums will continue well after a consolidated vision document goes public in January, when we expect yet more robust discussion.  So you will still have plenty of chances to comment.

But there’s no time like right now to give us your “wow” ideas for where the Refuge System should be headed in the next decade or so.  Join one group – or join several.  And let everyone know your “wish I had thought of that” idea or philosophy.  Public discussion of ideas only makes them better.

For 50 years the Arctic Refuge has played a vital role protecting habitat for iconic species like the polar bear. Image: USFWS

In the late 1950s, when conservationists Olaus and Mardy Murie led the fight to protect the landscape now known as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, they saw this vast, wild Arctic ecosystem as America’s best chance to preserve, in Olaus Murie’s words, “a wilderness area, a little portion of our planet left alone.”

On December 6, we’ll celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Arctic Refuge—and we’ll honor the vision and persistence of those who secured protection for this iconic 19-million-acre treasure at the edge of the Arctic Ocean.

As the nation’s first ecosystem-scale conservation area, does the Arctic Refuge offer lessons for landscape conservation in the  rest of the National Wildlife Refuge System as FWS crafts a vision for the future of the system? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

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What does the future of wildlife conservation and the Refuge System look like to you? (Image credit: Sheri Melanson)

There was great excitement in Madison last week as nearly 100 members of the Fish and Wildlife Service convened to discuss their vision for our National Wildlife Refuge System in the next decade and beyond.  It was incredible to see such enthusiasm in the spirit of conservation leaders such like Teddy Roosevelt, Aldo Leopold, and Rachel Carson.

This vision process is a momentous opportunity to shape the future of wildlife conservation.  At the NWRA we are excited to be playing a role in engaging the public about their thoughts on where wildlife refuges fit in a rapidly changing world.

Out of this process we want to see bold approaches emerge – ones that put protecting wildlife first by actively engaging other agencies, partners, Refuge Friends, and private landowners to leverage the incredible public resources of the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Wildlife Refuge System.

Download “NWRA’s Recommendations on Conserving the Future – Wildlife Refuges and the Next Generation”

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