The Refuge System's protection of waterfowl stands as a model for other conservation efforts. Gadwall at Lacassine NWR in Louisiana (credit: Michael Jones)
In 1934 the Beck report and the bold thinking of Ira Gabrielson, Ding Darling., Thomas Beck and Aldo Leopold put forth a vision of a National Wildlife Refuge System that would provide secure habitat to sustain recreationally viable populations of waterfowl for future enjoyment of the American people. They put that plan forward within the planning framework of the National Flyway System. Three generations of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service professionals and their colleagues in the state, tribal and private sector executed it in a way that secured habitat for each species of North American ducks and geese in each flyway and season of their occurrence.
77 years later the Refuge System’s protection of waterfowl stands as a model for other conservation efforts. With each waterfowl species occurring in viable numbers on multiple refuges across their full geographical, ecological and geophysical range during each season of its occurrence it’s clear that the basic conservation principles of the three Rs – representation, redundancy, and resilience – have been followed for each of the conservation targets. While the Refuge System is complete for waterfowl and has fulfilled the vision of those early visionaries for the refuge system, changing environmental conditions and the much more inclusive conservation ethic of today’s wildlife professionals demand a broader vision to guide our decision making as we move through the first half of the systems second century.
Regardless of the conservation targets chosen to fulfill that vision of the Refuge System, we would be well served to follow the lessons learned from our first century of conservation management:
- Use a coarse filter (ecological systems), fine filter (species) approach and the four Rs (representation, redundancy, resilience and restoration);
- Conduct an inventory and gap analysis of the conservation targets occurrences on the refuge system and other protected areas;
- Strategically fill the gaps by giving priority to those under-protected conservation targets that occurs in under protected ecological systems;
- Let the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives serve as your 21st century planning and implementation framework; and
- The median level of occurrences for waterfowl in the National Wildlife Refuge System (116) could serve as a the answer to the question of how much is enough. The area needed (resilience), to maintain the diversity, integrity and health of the refuge system will vary widely depending on the species chosen and ecological conditions that prevail.
If we choose our targets well and paint our vision boldly we can capture the imaginations of today’s and future generations of Americans and wildlife professionals in the way Gabrielson, Beck, Leopold and Darling did 80 years ago.
J. Michael Scott, Senior Scientist, US Geological Survey
