Conserving the Future: Wildlife Refuges and the Next Generation

Thanks for commenting on my post Betsy! Yes and yes! We need to get more friends, like you, involved in this visioning process right now. How can we do that? I have been sharing this with our friends group and I know NWRA is sharing it with friends groups through their routes of communication, but do we need to reach out in different ways to get more involvement?

You are right that the current mentor program is not meeting the demand for assistance. In addition to your idea for expanding the number of trained mentors that go around and officially provide the mentoring support for critical or tough issues, I am thinking that staff (the manager and/or liaison) at every refuge or hatchery that has a friends group, might need training about all aspects of sustaining healthy refuge/friends collaborations. We can’t expect everyone in the partnership to know the toolkit, but we also can’t rely solely on the mentoring program alone to get us back on track when we need help.

What if every refuge/friends collaboration identified two local mentor positions (one from the board and one refuge staff or even seek someone from the community)? These positions come with a job description, just like the president, secretary, and liaison. The role of these individuals, I’ll call them “facilitators”, is to be knowledgeable enough (via training or experience) about sustaining healthy refuge/friends collaborations and serve in “charting the course” and “steering the ship” when it gets off course.

I know I’m going off on a tangent here, but we have such an amazing collaboration with friends, like no other in any government agency, and I believe we need to devote more resources to nurturing those collaborations at home where they reside, not just at regional and national conferences, mentoring, and NCTC trainings. These collaborations will be key to accomplishing goals and objectives set forth in this visioning process.

Thank you for allowing me to express my thoughts!

Agree, again, Joanna!
We all need to be having more exchanges of ideas like this! Which is so easy and immediate via the use of sites like this, twitter, blogs, etc.

I believe that the increased use of social media tools by both Refuge staff and members of Friends’ groups can accomplish much of what you are hoping for.

Perhaps part of the mentoring process could be enhanced by the use of social media to increase communication among and between mentors and those they help. Perhaps, mentoring via social media connections could expand the program without the costs of travel and F2F time. Perhaps mentoring via social media connections could become an ongoing process rather than be limited as it is now to one visit between the mentor team and a Refuge and it’s Friends group. All this is possible – now!

I was so pleased to learn that this visioning process was making use of a site like this which is a wonderful beginning – but it is just that – a beginning. We need to involve more than the 300+ people who have taken the time to access this site and engage in this important dialogue.

I am so glad you have taken the time to engage in a conversation this morning! Let’s keep talking! And, encourage others to join us!

Dear Colleagues,

I have an extensive review of the “Relevance to a Changing America” draft vision document. After Mao Lin’s earlier apology for a “long-winded” comment of only a few paragraphs, I’m a bit embarrassed to mention that my comments fill a 12-page Word document. I was wondering what might be the most appropriate venue and manner of making my comments available for discussion. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks

Brian thatks for sharing your review with me. I hope the group writing the document takes them to heart. We need to focus on defining our role in telling the story of wildlife and the role of government in protecting and enhancing wildlife and their habitats. We must do that as excellently as we can. We must focus on our part of the story, the refuge system has never been, nor should it be all things to all people. We must convince ourselves of that before we can convince others.

My biggest concern is that we are seemingly losing touch with our roots, We must remember the changes that have been made, good or bad, we must remember what got us to where today, and importantly those skills and experiences that are being lost must be passed to the next generation of Refuge System employees.

There is no greater legacy we could leave than to make sure we have done our utmost to pass on the skills and experiences of the collective knowledge that is here before it is too late.

Brian -

Could you upload it to the documents section so that those of us that are interested could see your thoughts? That would make them available and yet be more manageable to read than a forum post.

Thanks in advance if you are willing!

As Bill requested, I have uploaded the document to this Core Team’s document list.

Relevance to Changing America Team,
I’ve enjoyed reading the new vision document, as well as Brian’s comments. I have to admit that I am struggling a bit with the whole “developing an ecological conscience of ALL Americans” concept as well. I realize that you may not have intended for it to come across as such. According to Freeman Tilden, effective interpretation begins with creating curiosity and awareness, which leads to understanding. With understanding, only then can we attempt to change values. However, it is best to allow people to come to their own conclusions and develop their own values if given the proper facts.

There are a few items within the document that jumped out at me upon a first read that I would like to provide comment.

Page 6: Recommendations for Being Integral to Communities
5th Bullet: “Develop a Friends group or volunteer program at every staffed refuge that does not now have one.”
Depending on the issues at a particular refuge, it may not be possible, needed, or cost effective. One size does not fit all.
6th Bullet: “Create a campaign to grow the Refuge Friends membership to 1 million people…” Is this a national or local effort? If we intend to help our friends build the memberships to 1 million people, we need to work with our friends organizations to create a plan (and resources) to sustain those memberships beyond the initial first year? Right now, Friends group membership benefits range from nothing to everything, based on the individual capabilities. People don’t have incentive to renew their membership to organizations that don’t provide benefits. I would argue that the quality (= renewed memberships), not number of new memberships (possibility of just one year), is what we should focus our efforts on. Increased quality in membership services and benefits will lead to an increase in both new and renewed memberships.

Page 7: Recommendations for Communicating the Benefits of Nature
Bullets 5 and 6: Refuge websites should be given equal emphasis with ‘new media’. Social media does not replace websites. In order for social media to be successful, relevant and competitive websites are needed.

Page 8: Recommendations for Expanding Conservation Education & School Partnerships
Bullet 1: “On refuges with visitor services staff, establish at least one educational partnership with a school within a reasonable driving distance of the refuge and develop daily or frequent repeated visits program.”
This is another one size does not fit all example. It is a massive leap to assume that just because there is a visitor services staff at a refuge, that the staff (maybe just one) is able to accommodate schools visits at all, let alone daily. If you are interested in a deeper perspective on this based on my direct experience, please feel free to contact me for more information. Bottom line, it’s important that you quantify “visitor service staff” and other variables that individual refuges may be dealing with.

What is missing from this entire document is how we can pull together as a System, instead of moving forward as individual refuges, to accomplish outreach and education goals “for the System as a whole”. We have 553 refuges across the nation. That means 553 communities! Smaller refuges with less resources are not able to implement this type of vision, which results in communities and refuges being left behind.
As in the Friends group membership numbers example, I believe it is most prudent to improve the quality of outreach and education at all stations possible before we look at doing more only with refuges that have the resources.

Page 9: Broadening Refuge Visitation and Public Awareness
2nd Paragraph: “The number of people engaged in wildlife observation on refuges…is on the rise.” This statement may warrant a citation.

Page 10-11: Recommendations for Facilitating Wildlife Experiences on NWR’s for all Americans
1st Bullet: “…establish 10 new refuges in or adjacent to the appropriate American cities.” Under what authority would we establish those refuges? Would it be more appropriate to develop partnerships with city/county recreation areas/parks to accomplish facilitating wildlife experiences to reach the urban populace such as you have suggested on page 12 under “Our Recommendations for Expanding Partnerships and Alliances”?
7th Bullet: “Double the number of youth participating in refuge hunting and fishing opportunities over the next 5 years.” This seems a very specific number without a specific rationale or outcome.

Page 12: Inspiring Collaboration
1st Paragraph: “As America confronts the challenges of increased population and urbanization, nature’s benefits are becoming more sought after and valued.” A citation may be warranted for this statement.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to comment. Happy New Year!

I agree with the comments that we should be careful about conflating strategies and goals within this document. As an example, if increasing relevancy to the local communities is a goal; as written, increasing Friends groups is a strategy that may help us achieve it. But it is only one tool in the toolbox. I might not want to use a screwdriver if what I have is a nail. As written this would be required. Maybe we just need to be tweak the language in the “recommendations” sections so that they are less absolute?

For Recommendations for Broadening Workforce Inclusiveness, diversity recruitment has been a goal for many years, but we haven’t been making headway. Why? I support the idea that we should be identifying the barriers to employment (proposed by Brian?) and trying to resolve them, that way everyone who wants a Service career has an equal opportunity. As a side note, entry-level positions are OK, but if there’s nothing to move up to, we won’t solve the retention issue.

Could we please remove the references to Richard Louv and “nature deficit disorder?” (p.2, On this point, I concede it may be a personal pet peeve, but the past few years this book has been over referenced, and it concerns me that we’d consider setting policy based on a single book. Outside of the pet peeve realm, Richard Louv’s book is a secondary source. On something as big as this document surely we can find some primary research to reference.

As a final comment, I think a public marketing plan is a GOOD idea. We shouldn’t be afraid to dedicate money to promoting ourselves. Marketing does not directly equal advertising or advocacy. As an example, it could mean that we finally develop a set of real Spanish-language materials – not translations – that communicate our messages to that audience in an appropriate way. Better brand recognition means that the public is one step closer to understanding our Mission and one step closer to supporting conservation.

Ah the pitfalls of technology! That was not suppose to be an emoticon….that was a p.8 with closed parentheses

In the vision document it states that we should “Ensure that every Refuge Website receives a level of attention commensurate with its status as the primary public face of the Refuge and the System, as well as the backbone of social media outreach efforts.” And Joanna also pointed out that social media cannot replace websites.

As the editor of RefugeWatch.org, I just wanted to say how important properly maintained websites are to someone like me who tries to promote individual refuges and the Refuge System as a whole.

I’m also a volunteer webmaster with a Refuge friends group and I’ve been a volunteer webmaster with the FWS, so I can certainly sympathize with the chore of keeping a website current. But I’ve come across refuge websites that had so many broken links or were so poorly laid out, that I just didn’t bother posting the link on RefugeWatch.org. It was just “better” to not send folks to the site because I knew the site would not give the public a positive image of the refuge. And again — this is often no reflection on the staff, because often they do not have the time to keep it current.

I’ve heard that the FWS is supposedly working on a universal refuge website template and possible content management system for the Refuge System websites, and I think it would be wonderful if 1) the Refuge System websites could adopt a coherent “look and feel,” such as the NPS has and 2) if employees could get the assistance (time, staff, training, etc) they need to focus on maintaining an effective web presence.

Those of us in social media want to link to your refuge websites — we want to highlight the wonderful content you often post there — but we need for the sites to be well-maintained and updated regularly in order to be encouraged to promote them. And of course, a well-maintained refuge website is immensely important to the public in finding the information they need to make the most of their visit. One look at an attractive refuge website is often all someone needs to be convinced to drive out of their way to visit a refuge.

Lisa, I agree with your post. For many years I wrote HTML and created web sites and understand the importance of a well maintained, visual pleaseing, easy to navigate and most importantly up to date web site. Social media will not replace this and as I’m learning while working on my communications degree in social media or (New Media) as it’s termed. However it is a piece of the puzzle and linking to a well maintained web site is very important.

I have noticed our web sites (except the major FWS web site), is not very well maintained, are not visually pleasing to the eye and are sometimes hard to navigate. I’ve mentioned this to our region but was told since I wasn’t an IT person, I didn’t have much of a say in how this is designed or put into practice. In my military career when something wasn’t working, it got changed. People were brought in that worked on solutions to the problems specifically and they weren’t always a “Expert” or Degree holder in that field.

We need to do a better job of making our Refuges top of the food chain when it comes to search engines and what not. Click through rates are as important as anything. Our kids are on the net all the time and we are tasked with making the Refuge system someplace they want to visit.

So in a long winded post, I’m glad to know there are others on this site that have the same feelings. I suppose that was an idea in putting this site together…:)

I also have re-read the draft document for about the 3rd time and I think one thing that stands out in my mind is ts the words “Urgent Need”. There isn’t anything specified for “urgent” or defined in the document regarding this. If everything is an “Urgent Need” how are we or you going to get anything accomplished. We all know that there is a need to bring our younger generations back to conservation and the Refuge system. however, at this point I wouldn’t use the word Urgent as it conotates we are losing the war. We haven’t even begun to fight! I would drop the word Urgent all together and just use “need” or There is a Need instead.

For instance, our YCC program every year always has more applicants than we can hire. Maybe this isn’t the “norm” for all Refuges but as far as it goes here there isn’t an “Urgent Need” as much as there is more of a need for more social awareness.

Just my thoughts, I’m sure there will be more to come!

Thanks, Mark. That’s very interesting regarding getting your input heard. And I agree, we don’t need to be IT experts to offer valuable input on websites. We’re all consumers of the Internet (and FWS websites), so we have something to offer in the way of user feedback and suggestions for making the Refuge System websites a strong public relations tool.

Lisa, you are the most important person to provide input into websites! It’s all about the users, especially nowadays with the saturated Internet market.

I think the challenge with the websites of the National Wildlife Refuge System is an issue of capacity. We know websites need improving, and we are actually adopting a System-wide software for managing our websites (called a Content Management System) that will be super huge in improving our websites.

Wow, thanks Brian, Joanna, Betsy, Mark, and the list goes on of all the people providing your insights. Right now, there is a team of people working to refine and edit the draft vision document before posting it on this website later this month, and we’ve made them aware of your comments. Thank you again so much for using the website!