NWRA’s Beyond the Boundaries program served as one of the key nonprofit partners in the just-announced proposal for a new Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area. It will conserve Florida ranch lands and the ranching way of life and protect habitat for critical species like the Florida panther.
At the turn of the 20th century, when President Teddy Roosevelt created the very first national wildlife refuge on Florida’s Pelican Island, establishing a refuge was all about protecting a discrete geographic place and the resources within its boundaries.
What a difference a century makes. Today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, working with partners like the National Wildlife Refuge Association, is increasingly thinking “beyond the boundaries” of our refuges to conserve entire landscapes. And that’s as it should be. What happens just outside the officially designated border of a refuge can have a profound effect on the wildlife, water, and other resources it was established to protect.
What landscapes would you like to see protected through “beyond the boundaries” initiatives? Why are they important to wildlife? to human communities? Let us know!
Two new initiatives recently announced by Secretary Salazar show how elegantly landscape-scale conservation can work—not only for the benefit of national wildlife refuges and the resources they protect, but also for the health and economic well-being of human communities who live and work outside refuge boundaries.
The first initiative—and the first new refuge created by the Obama Administration—is the new Flint Hills Legacy Conservation Area in Kansas announced in December 2010. It will protect precious remnants of the Tallgrass Prairie ecosystem, while at the same time sustaining Kansas’ rural ranching economy. It’s a win-win for the disappearing prairie and for a threatened rural way of life. Making it happen took the involvement not just of USFWS, but of private landowners, state agencies, and a host of other public and private partners.
The National Wildlife Refuge Association’s Beyond the Boundaries program served as one of the key nonprofit partners in the second initiative, the just-announced proposal for a new Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area. It will conserve Florida ranch lands and the ranching way of life, protect habitat for critical species like the Florida panther and the Florida snail kite, and help assure clean drinking water for 6.5 million Floridians. It’s a monumental effort that involved years of negotiations and partners that include refuge Friends groups, the Department of Defense, Florida government agencies, private landowners, and other nonprofit groups. We need more projects like these.
As the USFWS crafts a dynamic new vision for the future, thinking and planning beyond the boundaries of our existing refuges will become increasingly important. Landscape-scale conservation is an elegant and important conservation tool that should have a prominent place in the Service’s toolbox.
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David – I think we all agree much is to be gained from protecting watersheds and wildlife migratory corridors in fragmented landscapes. What is difficult is seeing where the money will be found to give new areas the adequate attention and protection necessary. The Government Accountability Office repeatedly projects declining federal discretionary funds into the coming decades with no discretionary funds available by the mid 2030s. In addition to having no funds to manage the NWRS, I think this means there will be strong economic incentives to squeeze dollars out of fallow lands. The difficult question as we look forward and discuss land acquisition is do we take on more responsibility knowing that we may fall flat in providing adequate stewardship because we spread our budget to thin with too many refuges? I don’t know the answer. But when I think of leaving refuges unstaffed I wince. Thanks for your thoughtful post – I hope it stimulates introspection it deserves. Jimmy
I think Jimmy’s comments are valid. But something else I worry about are the arrangements where the FWS has less authority over the land and resources. In voluntary deals, where land is protected in ways other than by outright purchase by the government, I feel like there is the possibility that ranchers or other commercial entities will have too much influence over conservation efforts, and those compromises could result in a less effective effort than if the land was bought and owned by the FWS.
I understand that today — as money is short and some communities are leery of the government “locking up land” — these conservation-easement type arrangements are sometimes more easily done than the government acquiring large chunks of land (especially when you’re talking about a deal the size of the Everglades arrangement), but there is something to be said for making property an official refuge under control of the FWS.
Lisa:
Thanks for your thoughtful comments – nobody believes in National Wildlife Refuges more than I do – at the Refuge Association we are working hard to add lands in New England, Mid Atlantic, Southeast, Mid-west, Inter-mountain West, the Southwest and along the Pacific. I don’t think it is a question of Refuge vs Conservation Area or in other words fee vs conservation easement but rather working on both fee AND conservation easement conservation. If you take our wonderful Alaska Refuges out of the mix – your average Refuge is 2,400 acres in size – Conservation Areas are an effort to get to the scale that wildlife need. Thanks for your support – David
Can we link all these areas, along with our Nation Parks, our Nation Forrest, and private preserves together in a search-able data base with suggestions for routes to tour and view them from cars, bikes, and motorcycles? Add a list of hot topics like tree color change, snowfall, and migration timing for those of us that plan trips on the spur of the moment… After all, the work that goes into all these places are for people (second to wildlife) to benefit from it. The more people see, the more they share, the more they share, the more people that care. Apathy is a killer of funding and personal support. How about working with AAA to do a virtual “Trip-ticket” during key times for wildlife? I remember going to the everglade and only seeing grass because I had no idea when the best viewing season was. The next time I was better self educated, saw more, and enjoyed that trip.
Hi Will, an excellent idea! Suggest you also post to the “Bold Ideas” where people can provide additional comments and votes.
Best,
Evan
At this point in time, I would like to comment that it would be appropriate to enlist the aide of organizations like The Wilderness Society, National Wildlife Federation, The Nature Conservancy, National Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists, The Audubon Society, Arbor Day, The National Parks and Recreation Association, any other organization who can bring assets to the forefront. These assets could buy land, with the help of federal subsidy, which could then be protected as “Wilderness /Refuge” land. In this manner both indigenous species of trees/animals and migratory birds would be protected. Surely, some member of congress will carry forward a bill to create jobs through the collective restructure of our burdened eco-system. This is the right road and I believe that now is the time to act because President Obama is supporting the cause.
The most critical step is protecting what is already in place. As I write, some congress members are still fighting to push big oil-interests on us in an effort to line their own pockets with the proceeds. If I could, I would rip them off the floor by the hair on their individual heads! I’m sick of dirty energy and dirty, closed-door, politics.
The second most important thing is to mount a collective effort which is so large that not even the dirty politicians can justify their own positions. I have outlined a brief plan above that would do it. A single petition fielded by every environmental organization listed above in a mass collective effort to inform the Republicans that they are throwing our environment away and we don’t like it.
Let’s not put the cart before the horse here. We have been given a chance to restructure what Theodore Roosevelt put in place at a time very similiar in history to where we are today. This is the Second Great Depression. Roosevelt used land conservation as a way to create jobs and it worked to help revive the economy and give us, a ecological legacy to pass forward. Let’s not lose that opportunity.
To look beyond the boundaries, we have to know what’s going on outside the refuge, and who’s doing what. At an individual refuge level, the Refuge Manager should have a good handle on the immediate vicinity and impacts on the Refuge. But as a National Agency, we do not do a good job of being aware of the larger landscape and making landscape conservation information available to the Refuge Manager or others involved. This is not rocket science. Other FWS Divisions, like the Division of Habitat Conservation, are doing this now. Whenever a project on the land is proposed, they can easily see on a map, what other similar projects have been done nearby. They can see all the projects for a particular species, or a type of restoration activity. This can be overlayed on habitat information and land use. This lets you see the big picture and make realistic decisions. Are we investing our money wisely? Is it the best place to do it? How does this project contribute to the bigger picture of this species on the landscape? It’s transparent, and everyone sees the same data. Then we can more easily work together.
Working beyond boundaries has been standard operating procedure on Wetland Management Districts for many years. In the last two weeks, personnel from our office have attended and/or hosted meetings involving County Commissioners, Township supervisors, State Representatives, Minnesota DNR, Soil and Water Conservation Districts, Watershed Districts, NRCS, FSA, Ducks Unlimited, The Nature Conservancy, Pheasants Forever, Minnesota Waterfowl Association, Deer Hunters Association and most importantly, private landowners. The primary focus of these meetings was to get more conservation on the ground within a seven County area. Much of the emphasis is on private lands. I do not use this example to boast about our activities but rather to point out that working beyond the boundaries is nothing new and very achievable. I have worked on four Wetland Management Districts and I am familiar with the workings of many others and this is common practice.
Working beyond our boundaries is not only essential to accomplishing our mission but is also very achievable. Several fine examples of working beyond our boundaries were given in the document. Many other fine examples of how to achieve working beyond our boundaries can easily be found by looking at what Wetland Management Districts do as part of their normal activities.
While the Service has several good tools to provide and encourage conservation beyond our boundaries, our tools are only a small component of all the tools in the tool box. By developing relationships with many partners, agencies and landowners and understanding their objectives and programs we make the tool box much larger and have the potential to put conservation on the ground anywhere beyond our boundaries. In fact, we in a sense eliminate those boundaries. It is not rocket science. It just takes communication and work.
I love Wills suggestion of putting all this information together in a publically searchable database. We need more initiatives like this in order to help share information.