Wildlife conservation on national wildlife refuges requires carefully designed protection and planned management of fish and wildlife populations and habitat to assure that biological diversity, integrity and environmental health are sustained. Conservation delivery means taking action on the ground to protect, restore and enhance fish, wildlife and plant populations and their habitats. It may sound simple, but nothing could be more complex.
Conservation delivery is not a new concept, but the job has grown in complexity because of unprecedented habitat fragmentation, invasive species, climate change impacts, and other stressors. Conservation professionals must contend with the endless variability and interdependence of ecological systems, and work to achieve positive conservation outcomes with information that will always be incomplete. Conservation professionals will require skill, adaptability and the capacity for innovation to meet such threats.
For conservation delivery systems to meet the challenges of the present and future, the traditional strengths of the National Wildlife Refuge System – a spectacular diversity of lands and waters fortified by a dedicated workforce – must be enhanced. So, too, must the Refuge System’s scientific capacity, operational flexibility and practical innovation be strengthened. Conservation delivery is where biological planning and conservation design come together, and action is taken. The urgency for action has never been greater.
Ever since Pelican Island was established as America’s first national wildlife refuge in 1903, the Refuge System has grown, sometimes haphazardly and opportunistically. Growth has benefited species and habitat most when goals are clear, such as protecting and restoring waterfowl populations along the flyways or the protection of an endangered species.
Land protection strategies have evolved to recognize that multiple ecological scales must be considered. Future conservation efforts will still require core protected areas, but strategies must include linking and buffering core areas with working landscapes that consider conservation practices. Maximizing sustainable populations of fish and wildlife at larger geographic scales requires they be managed in conjunction with the adjoining mosaic of land.
Recommendation: All future land protection strategies should incorporate local, landscape and other necessary ecological scales and emphasize the importance of working lands in the surrounding landscape.
It is now widely recognized that partnerships are essential to configure a conservation landscape large enough to protect fish and wildlife. The Refuge System is a vital and irreplaceable element of the conservation estate, but it cannot protect all ecosystems and all species alone. Partnerships and collaboration are essential to extend conservation delivery work beyond boundaries and across the landscape. The variety of potential partners is nearly limitless, but must include federal agencies, states, tribes, a diverse spectrum of non-governmental organizations, and Refuge Friends organizations.
One example of a collaborative, landscape-scale conservation success is the Blackfoot Challenge in Montana. The Blackfoot Challenge is a grassroots group organized to coordinate management of the Blackfoot River, its tributaries and 1.5 million acres of adjacent lands. While the group has no formal membership, it consists of numerous private landowners, federal and state agency representatives, including a number of national wildlife refuges, local government officials and several corporate landowners. Together, the participants work to enhance, conserve and protect the natural resources and rural lifestyle of the Blackfoot River Valley for present and future generations. The Blackfoot Challenge supports environmentally responsible resource stewardship through the cooperation of public and private interests.
Land protection strategies for the future must be devised to place protected areas in the context of the greater surrounding landscape and consider the role of working lands, like ranches and farms. Efforts must focus on representation of ecological communities in protected areas, of adequate size and connectivity to other protected areas. The Service, in partnership with others, must work with a dual focus of protecting both the areas under highest threat today and those with relatively intact biodiversity. Conservation in the future must include not only public lands but the important roles of working ranches, farms and forests, as well as privately owned recreational properties with conservation provisions that buffer and link protected areas.
Not all new wildlife refuges or refuge expansions must involve land acquisitions. The vast majority of the Refuge System, as well as the National Park and Forest systems, came from the withdrawal of lands from unreserved public domain. Planners should consider whether withdrawal of unreserved public domain for wildlife conservation purposes as national wildlife refuges can increase the size, connectivity, redundancy and representation of the conservation estate and contribute to climate change adaptation.
Landscape Conservation Cooperatives will help inform future land protection efforts via Strategic Habitat Conservation and the National Fish and Wildlife Climate Adaptation Strategy. Both efforts endorse a unified approach to reducing the negative impacts of climate change, setting conservation targets, identifying gaps in the conservation landscape, designing a network of planned conservation areas, implementing priority conservation measures, monitoring, and adapting future strategies based on cooperative action. But future land protection planning is hampered by the lack of an integrated strategy for accomplishing the varying missions of the land management agencies. Others in the conservation community have developed like-minded, adaptive management models, which present an opportunity to integrate efforts and further establish common ground upon which to act.
The Refuge System must move quickly to participate in a collaborative landscape-level strategy for the National Wildlife Refuge System that can effectively address the most challenging and pervasive 21st century threats to biodiversity, such as climate change, urban development, habitat loss and fragmentation, and invasive species. The landscape strategy must transcend the Refuge System. A National Conservation Strategy for the Refuge System involves working with partners and local communities to develop and implement innovative conservation techniques across federal, state, public, and privately owned lands that effectively and efficiently protect and manage species, habitats, and ecological services.
Recommendation: Work collaboratively to develop a National Conservation Strategy for the National Wildlife Refuge System.
Under this strategy and working with partners, the Refuge System must use the best available science to identify local, national, and global conservation priorities and link these with clear conservation goals and objectives across various temporal and spatial scales. The process takes into consideration how priorities fit into a policy and institutional context. The Refuge System should establish a mechanism to revise or reassess priorities at regular intervals.
The national strategy will ensure implementation of management actions that transcend jurisdiction. The Refuge System encourages collaboration and teamwork among the Service, state and federal agencies, and other partners to maximize effectiveness of species and habitat conservation and stewardship across the landscape. Successful implementation of the National Conservation Strategy must involve partner agencies, organizations, local communities, and other stakeholders at all stages of the process, from priority setting to implementation and evaluation.
The national strategy should include 1) identifying conservation targets (species, habitats, connectivity, biological redundancies, and ecological services), 2) collecting information, assessing existing conservation areas based on biodiversity values and conservation targets, and identifying gaps, 3) setting bold conservation goals and priorities, 4) evaluating the viability and integrity of conservation targets, 5) selecting and designing a network of conservation areas that preserves these conservation targets and contributes to meeting conservation goals (both as a part of the Refuge System and external to the Refuge System), 6) assessing threats and setting priorities, and 7) evaluating and monitoring the process to ensure the strategy is meeting program objectives.
Comment below and/or move on to next section of Chapter 2- Strategic Growth
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Protecting or enhancing ecosystem functionality seems key to all this strategizing, or we are missing a vital compenent the lack of which will severly limit our work and require constant management. This idea is not explicit in this document and I wonder why. Is “ecological services” getting at it? I am not sure. A wetland can offer a service, but if what keeps a wetland there into the future is not also protected, then we are just setting ourselves up to constantly rebuild the wetland to meet the “services” goal.
I agree that looking at (and planning according to) the big picture is essential for wildlife and for NWR relationships with adjoining communities. Taking a page from the Blackfoot Challenge and forming more groups that include adjoining community members could offer many advantages to other refuges: 1) identifying common priorities regarding habitat or environmental restoration/remediation, 2) opening the door to new grantwriting/fundraising efforts, 3) getting buy-in from communities in terms of how they might help on their own land and on the refuge, and 4) creating greater bonds of trust between refuges and adjoining communities.
I find this section a bit confusing, Are NWR managers to achieve the goals and objectives of individual refuges primarily through landscape planning? Many of the critters supported by the NWRS and FWS are INTERNATIONAL in their use of the landscape and waterscape. Where do the North American Waterfowl Management Plan and the Shorebird (international) Recovery Plan fit in? Why aren’t a broader array of landscape plans mentioned? I suspect many state and federal managers are knowledgeable about these plans and how their units contribute.
This section seems a very broad brush approach, lacking any specific guidance.
I agree w/Dale, this section leaves out a lot of existing efforts and programs that are already doing what is suggested, like joint ventures. Also the para starting “Not all new Wildlife refuges…” doesn’t make sense to me. What “unreserved public domain lands” are we talking about?
It is appauling that the Fish and Wildlife Service even considered allowing the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to gun down wolves from helicopters and gas pups in their dens, and in a wilderness too! State game agencies should have no influence on management of wildlife on federal wildlife refuges.
“…the Refuge System must use the best available science to identify local, national, and global conservation priorities and link these with clear conservation goals and objectives across various temporal and spatial scales.” This point cannot be overstated.
You might also consider an additional recommendation in this section: Conservation delivery should be directly linked to biological planning efforts (ie. SHC) and conducted within the context of a well-thought-out experimental design and monitoring framework. Doing so will move the Service toward increased efficiency and increased accountability.
We need to do a better job of monitoring the effectiveness of conservation activities. This begins with explicit outcome-based objectives; we then need to understand whether our management activities are actually achieving those objectives (we too often assume success based on project “completion” without following through to monitoring actual biological outcomes); and we ultimately need to understand the cause-effect relationship of conservation delivery actions through a robust experimental design and monitoring.
I recommend the following changes to the first recommendation in this section, as well as the preceding paragraph:
Land protection strategies have evolved to recognize that multiple ecological scales must be considered. Future conservation efforts will still require core protected areas, but strategies must include linking and buffering core areas with working landscapes and networks that employ conservation practices. Achieving sustainable populations of fish, wildlife and plants at larger geographic scales requires they be managed in conjunction with the adjoining mosaic of land and the societal nature therein.
Recommendation: All future land protection strategies should incorporate the concept of core protected areas, which logically will include National Wildlife Refuges, perhaps National Parks or other large, reasonably intact ecosystems, along with the necessary connectivity at various landscape and ecological scales and emphasize the importance of working lands with conservation values, in the surrounding landscape.
I appreciate all the hard work that the team members have invested in this important document. My recommendations focus on the need to emphasize our most important priority. The draft moves toward it, but falls short. In my view, action is the essence of conservation delivery, the vital foundation that supports everything else. It puts dirt under your fingernails, mud on your boots, and the sun and wind on your face. It isn’t another plan or a new strategy or a new policy. Conservation delivery happens outside, on the landscape or seascape. Policy and plans are important components of refuge management, but they are only words on paper or electrons on a computer screen. At the end of the day, with the best policies in the world and all the plans you could ever want sitting in your bookcase, the work on the ground is number one. Without it, we’ve got nothing.
Action involves adjusting water levels in managed wetlands; conducting waterfowl or shorebird surveys; driving down the levee to interact with hunters and anglers; burning moist soil and native grasslands; mowing the levees; moving sea turtle nests to safe areas; servicing the dozer, excavator, and tractor; filling the fuel tanks; fixing the electric gate; launching the boat; and checking the wood duck boxes. These actions deliver the product. It’s what we’re here for. The Visions document should include real time examples of the work that we do each and every day on wildlife refuges for the habitat and for the species. There should be information regarding the importance of that work, and why we should make it our number one priority over all else. We’ve wandered in recent times to writing more plans, developing another policy, inventing more databases. These are redirections from our center. This section should include concrete solutions for restoring the capacity that was lost during Workforce Planning, improving the budget so that operating margins and FTEs are protected, solving facility management funding shortfalls, addressing the impacts of climate change, re-emphasizing on the ground habitat management, and every possible way of restoring the capacity to focus on our most important component – conservation delivery. Without it, we’re spinning our wheels.
Strategic Growth of the NWRS
Recommendation: Pursue and encourage assessment of all BLM lands for reassignment of purposes, land transfers to other agencies or disposal to other entities. The USFWS – for the NWRS, along with NPS and USFS should be engaged in the inventory and assessment of all BLM lands to help determine the appropriate agency to accept the transfer of lands and management resources for various purposes. Lands of high wildlife and conservation value will be high on the list for transfer into the NWRS. Personnel and other resources should be transferred commensurate with needs – values will need to be prorated. Other Federal agencies, Tribes and States could also be involved in this effort to help consolidate management, develop conservation corridors and address multiple and other natural resources values. BLM would essentially be eliminated as a land management organization, however, continuing or expanded roles for BLM in dealing with resource extraction, minerals management, oil and gas, along with land records, survey and other data management may be appropriate. This effort will likely take many years to complete, but should be initiated immediately, with the goal of conducting the initial inventory and plan for phase one land transfers within 2-3 years. An ultimate goal of reducing some Federal expenditures through this consolidation of management, along with the potential sale of some lands and resources should also be primary and help to promote this effort.
I am not convinced that the LCCs are going to adequately inform future land protection priorities and strategies for the NWRS – or anyone else. Maybe it’s too soon for an assessment – but so far, there has been not been anything that seems like a unified approach will develop from this organization. I suggest that the NWRS, along with the other federal land management agencies work directly together as one level of coordination, and that more emphasis be placed at the local community level to support both a bottom up approach in terms of what communities want to see and do in terms of conservation, along with coordination at the Federal and State levels in terms of existing and future roles for such entities as the NWRS. (reference to page 9 – lines 30 – 40)
in response to the Recommendation – to work collaboratively to develop a National Conservation Strategy for the NWRS – I agree, and actually it should be for the USFWS and the NWRS. There should be a permanent planning and analysis capacity with the NWRS that can use the best available science, work with partners at various scales to help determine overall conservation priorities, and the appropriate roles for the FWS and NWRS. As noted, this analysis needs to be dynamic, able to adjust and adapt to changing priorities and include the capability to determine and address threats to ecological systems, wildlife habitat and species. Having a range of tools and options to deal with conservation priorities is also very important – and should include land acquisition, permanent conservation easements, and shorter term agreements.
Recommendations for helping to guide the NWRS land conservation strategy:
Draft New Policy and Procedures for Conducting Landscape Level Planning; Collaborative Conservation; and Site Specific Land Protection
Establish a new training program for landscape level planning and land protection planning
Revise the LAPS System to be more responsive to Regional Conservation Priorities
Engage in leading scientists conducting Vulnerability Assessments and incorporate the best models anda analysis into land protection / conservation planning efforts to address changes from sea level rise, human populations, climate and other factors.
Assess all existing NWRs and determine their adequacy to function and meet purposes. Some refuges may be too small or unconnected to function effectively. Evaluate these stations for possible expansions, exchanges or other disposition.
I agree with Heather Bell and would like to see ecosystem functionality become a stronger componenet of this section.
I agree with Raye Nillius’ comment above regarding “in the end, its’ the work on the ground” that matters. We (FWS) will never have enough funds to buy enough land or conservation easements to turn the extinction trend around. It will be private landowners, and how they manage their lands. FWS could play an important role or increase its current role in working with landowners by partnering with NRCS and other entities for connecting landowners with appropriate programs and incentives to keep their properties and farms intact. Such an outreach and education effort on the part of the FWS could be concurrent with its own strategic growth in its land base. Training, education, and development of FWS personnel to form a cadre of qualified experts who could advise landowners on land conservation strategies and options, help with understanding of land conservation tools and land management options, referrals to local conservation experts for legal and tax advice, conducting workshops and outreach, and for the formation of local partnerships would not only be a reasonably achievable, affordable goal but would strengthen refuges’ roles in their communities. It might not even require additional staffing but some retooling of existing resources. As it is now, FWS Partners program, which does some of this, is very understaffed, and local NRCS extension agents, which do a lot of advising to landowners, have highly variable expertise, generally steered toward farming related goals.
I think refuge managers should work on partnerships whenever possible, but I think it is secondary to “running the refuge.” You can’t devote too much time off refuge, the needs are there. I believe regional offices and ecological services are already working at landscape levels. I know refuge employees can be “station minded” but that’s how the family-oriented work environment is created. Everyone is working together for common goals set by the refuge manager. I would encourage more input on LCC’s from the RO and ES offices. Landscape conservation starts with defining priorities and purchasing lands, easements, whatever…to protect the land. Priorities for protecting endangered species – critical habitat, could come from ES and priorities for migratory birds and other landscape scale species should come from regional offices with input from field level biologists. Refuge employees are supposed to be primarily station minded, not that they don’t think of other lands, refuges, agencies etc.., but the focus should be on the work that needs doing on their station.
I support the idea of developing a National Conservation Strategy for the Refuge System. The process as described in the last paragraph sounds very similar to Systematic Conservation Planning (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v405/n6783/full/405243a0.html), which is used by TNC and other NGOs. Also, many useful conservation planning tools have been developed based on this model (i.e. MARXAN, ConsNet, etc). Suggest the NWRS utilize these tools, as appropriate to develop the Strategy.