Why Isn’t “National Wildlife Refuge”

a Household Name?

 

 

We need to sing it from the rooftops:  America’s national wildlife refuges bring economic and environmental benefits to Americans in every corner of the nation.

And we’ve got the numbers to prove it.  The 2007 Banking on Nature report found that recreational use on wildlife refuges returned about $1.7 billion in economic activity to local communities.  If your house is near a wildlife refuge, it’s probably worth more than the same house farther from the recreation and beauty provided by a refuge.  And what about the value of the clean air and water that wildlife refuges deliver, along with reduced erosion and flooding and other ecological services?  We’re putting a number on that too.

So why doesn’t everybody know national wildlife refuge?  How can we spread the word?

The Conserving the Future Communications Implementation Team for the National Wildlife Refuge System has been pondering those questions – and we’ve come up with some ideas.  Here are a few:  a celebrity spokesman; giving local refuges the messages they can deliver right in their communities; using new media – Facebook, Twitter, QR codes – more fully; improving the directional signs along roads and highways.

We know that national wildlife refuges need to plan activities that are appropriate and compatible with the conservation mission of the Refuge System, but we also need activities that capture the imagination of people who traditionally don’t go to a wildlife refuge.  It’s what the Conserving the Future vision calls creating a “connected conservation constituency”.

While the Communications Implementation Team moves forward to write a strategic communications plan that will encompass a host of new approaches, some refuges are already creating excitement.  Consider the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, which runs 261 miles along the river and through four states.  The refuge will be heavily involved with the Summer of Paddling 2012, an unprecedented partnership that will connect Americans to the great outdoors by offering a series of paddling events along the 2,400 miles of one of America’s most extraordinary rivers.  Scores of wildlife refuges and state and national parks will be involved.  Each of the 10 state bordering the river will host paddling events along with festivals and fairs, among other events.

And how will the events be publicized?  You guessed it: the Web, Facebook, Twitter, radio and TV, the whole gamut of media.

That kind of blanket media coverage is just what the Communications Implementation Team is working to build for the Refuge System.  Your ideas are welcome additions to the ones that you will see when the Conserving the Future implementation teams’ work plans are put online in the coming weeks.

 

*This is the first of many “In the Spotlight” blog posts that will keep you informed on the nine implementation teams and the work they are performing to make the vision a reality. Check out our Facebook and Twitter for continual updates!