Sections of Chapter 4: Human-Nature
- Connecting People with Nature
- Welcome to Your National Wildlife Refuge
- Broadening Refuge Visitation and Use
- A Sense of Place, a Sense of Community
- The Next Generation of Conservationists
- School Partnerships and the Future of Environmental Education
- Communicating the Benefits of Nature
The mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people.
The Service’s workforce is passionately committed to its conservation mission, yet the purpose behind the mission statement, “for the continuing benefit of the American people,” sometimes generates less attention. Just as the Service must adapt its conservation work in the face of changing environmental conditions, there is a similar urgency – and opportunity – to understand and respond to America’s changing attitudes and demographics. America is becoming older, increasingly urban, more culturally and ethnically diverse, and more responsive to including people with varying abilities in every area of life. This changing America deserves the utmost service and access to the appropriate nature-based benefits of its public lands. As an agency, the Service must inspire people from all walks of life to create a conservation partnership with America.
Rachel Carson described natural processes as a “panorama of endless change.” The phrase is equally apt for the American population: Eighty percent of Americans now live in urban or suburban areas. Americans are spending less and less time outdoors, and some are feeling a disheartening separation from the world. Much writing and research today depicts a younger generation of Americans unaccustomed to digging in the dirt, contemplating the stars, or figuring out what creature lives in the burrow. As society becomes increasingly disconnected from nature, the importance of functioning ecosystems to them fades. National wildlife refuges provide important habitat for our nation’s wildlife; equally, they provide meaningful, if not essential, places that nourish the human spirit.
Comment below and/or move on to next section of Chapter 4 - Connecting People with Nature
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Bravo! Thank you for including the drastic change in the amount of time people spend outside (or don’t spend, rather) and our spiritual connection to the land. I think this section could be strengthened by adding why it is important for people to understand how healthy ecosystems function. (i.e. the land ethic — we are all part of the community, the land included — and that land sustains our every physical need, counteract climate change with carbon sequestration, etc.)
I realize that this agency’s primary focus is wildlife conservation, but I must point out that there are other disciplines that work within the agency. I am a museum curator for the FWS and am disappointed to see that the words “museum” and “cultural resource” are not to be found anywhere in the draft document, and that “visitor center” appears only once. As a federal agency, FWS also has an obligation to preserve the nation’s cultural legacy, and this is reflected in part, in the three formal museum collections maintained by the FWS, archeological collections at various repositories and universities, as well as the large number of visitor centers contained within our refuges. While only a small minority within the agency, our efforts to conserve cultural resources and educate the public are also a part of the mission of the Service, and merit a mention and due consideration as we plan for the future.
Dean Knudsen, Museum Curator
DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge
Thank you for pointing this omission out, Dean. From the point of view of a Friends’ member, the most frequent contact that the general public has with Refuges is the Visitors’ Center or, as in your case, a museum. It seems to me that if we want to encourage public support for the Refuge System, then the importance of friendly and informative Visitors’ Centers at every Refuge are a critical ingredient. Children especially enjoy the activities for them that are offered in many Visitors’ Centers. And, as I have mentioned before, the children of today are the Friends of tomorrow!
Betsy Burch
Pres. Friends of Humboldt Bay NWR
I too work in visitor services. I am concerned however with the number of visitor centers we are building since the Service fails to adequately staff them. Whether the desk is predominantly covered with volunteers or not, a site with a visitor center should have at least two visitor services staff, providing outreach, interpretive and educational products and programs related to the work of the Service and of the refuge, and providing back up coverage for the visitor center. Also, in my experience volunteer coverage of visitor centers has only worked well in approximately 1/2 of the refuge visitor center sites nationwide. When you have built a visitor center on a refuge, one visitor services staff person is not adequate.
As I reread this section and think about the America’s Great Outdoors report that just came out, I think we need to double check our recommendations and strategies to be certain that we are going to be doing our part in that effort. There is a great list of “Effective Partnerships and Programs” on page 143 of the report that the Relevancy team and other editors will want to visit and consider. It’s great to be innovative and come up with something new, but perhaps we would do quite well to spend more time considering effective and successful programs already out there. For instance, partnering with the health agencies in order to encourage people to spend more time outdoors for their health and overall well-being. We could easily be a part of The Prescription Trails program or other prescription programs and touch a whole new group of would-be outdoor enthusiasts.
Excellent suggestion – and one part of it is already in place. National Wildlife Refuges are participating in a Nature Champions program through which local health practitioners (doctors, school nurses, clinics, etc.) write “prescriptions” for increased outdoor activity. A pediatric cardiology center in Las Vegas is organizing weekly family field trips to refuges in the Desert complex. There was a whole story in USA Today this past week http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2011-02-28-nature28_ST_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip.
This nation’s protected lands share a common heritage. Although they are now segregated and divided into a number of agencies and managers, I believe that it would be helpful to turn back to the essence of what provoked men and women to set aside these lands in the first place.
Of course the initial game preserves, inspired by Roosevelt, Bird, and others, were at least initially concerned with game animals. But read the words of Roosevelt and Pinchot as they talk about the forest lands, and how wildlife is invariably mentioned in the same breath with lumber. Also consider the National Park Service, and their mission “to promote and regulate the use of the…national parks…which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”
Wildlife is one of the common threads binding these agencies and lands together. What I have experienced, though, is that while the USFWS is an excellent resource manager, the agency has limited skills (and at times desires) in connecting people to the resources they manage. Perhaps a place to start is with one of the founders of the art of interpretation, Enos Mills. Mills wrote that “nature is universal. On this round rotating globe everyone has a place in the sun…flowers color and charm all continents and islands, are an international joy; birds know no boundary lines and sing to the heart of all people.”
Of course Mills would not recognize the America of today (he died in 1922). His “universe” now lives within our own boundaries. His “all people” visit parks, forests, and refuges in a diversity he could never have imagined.
Freeman Tilden, on the other hand, lived to see this change taking place. Yet he had faith in the power of interpretation to engage all visitors, to transport them beyond the apparent to the meaning behind the facade. Mills, Tilden, Roosevelt, Pinchot, McFarland, Bird, Dock, Rothrock, and others had an inquisitive, rather than acquisitive, relationship with nature.
To focus so absolutely on two acquisitive recreations as the primary means of connecting people with nature is myopic. The USFWS has been both blessed and cursed by funding derived from hunting and fishing. The agency (and agencies, considering states) is blessed with a steady revenue stream, yet cursed in that it is wedded to recreations that are declining. To fund wildlife refuges with excise taxes, stamp sales, and such makes as much sense as funding state parks with a cigarette tax.
My recommendation is to develop a “connecting people with nature” strategy that is recreation agnostic. The goal, I believe, should be to connect all people to nature and wildlife through the refuges. I say this with some hesitancy, since I agree with Dean that there is an equivalent need to connect people with their historical and cultural heritage through refuges as well. I do not say this as an overt criticism of hunting and fishing. I say this only as a criticism of their disproportionate influence on this as well as state wildlife agencies.
If there is a true interest within the agency to better connect with the citizenry, and to nurture within us all not simply an appreciation for our heritage but also an understanding of what is necessary to sustain what we have inherited, then the USFWS must integrate our diverse population into its planning, physically as well as philosophically. The current recommendations within connecting people with nature address the needs of a small constituency, I fear, one not remotely reflective of our richly diverse American population.
Thanks Ted.
By law we have SIX priority public uses. In practice the Service gives more priority to two of these than it does to the other four. I envision a future for our agency where our hunting and fishing heritage is honored and continued, while we also embrace the wildlife observation and photography activities that are rising in popularity, and the educational and interpretive efforts that must grow to support the biological and management work that we do.
A question or two to continue the thread Ted Eubanks began…
As a member of the core team that worked on the recommendations in this chapter, we wrestled a lot with ideas that would bring more diverse populations to refuges as visitors and employees – diverse in race and ethnicity but also in outlook, background and interests. What are some of the ways you would suggest doing that?
And I’m interested in your phrase “recreation agnostic.” What would be some of the ways you would try to connect people with nature that would be recreation agnostic? The Refuge System does promote 6 wildlife dependent areas of recreation – yes hunting and fishing are right up there, but also wildlife observation, photography, environmental education and interpretation.
Chapter 4, Human-Nature
The first sentence in the Welcome to Your NWR section is telling: “The number of people interested in wildlife watching and learning is actually growing.” Why should this be surprising? Several authoritative studies have documented this fact, and the fact that the interest in hunting is declining. Yet, all the recommendations for Connecting People with Nature relate to only providing for more hunting and fishing opportunities. It points to the need, as expressed in Jeff Brooks’ Bold Idea, for the Service to conduct and rely more on the findings of the social science literature. It also points to the need for the Refuge System to recognize and address its long-standing over-emphasis on hunting and favored constituents, hunters.
That said, let me make clear that hunting is a fine traditional use of many refuges. I have hunted and took my kids hunting on refuges. I don’t believe, as stated on page 34, that the Appropriate Refuge Uses policy needs to be interpreted more flexibility. But I do believe that many other appropriate uses need to be recognized and supported. And this includes the ever-important opportunity for people to simply be in nature, whether they are participating in the “big two” (hunting and fishing), the other “big six,” or not.
Three times our family floated down the Missouri River into the Charles M Russell Refuge. We canoed and camped for a few days on the refuge, hiking, exploring, and just enjoyed being together in the beauty and quiet. We didn’t kill anything, our experience wasn’t “big six” qualified, but was no less meaningful in providing the benefits mentioned in Connecting People to Nature. There are so many appropriate non-consumptive uses and benefits available on refuges; surely they merit at least one of four Connecting People with Nature recommendations.
Such uses are particularly important in refuge wilderness areas. In designated Wilderness, a public purpose is recreation, and the Wilderness Act did not intend recreation to be limited to the so-called “wildlife dependent” uses or the “big six” activities, although seeing or the hope of seeing wildlife is always part of the experience. This chapter needs to recognize and support the uses and benefits associated with the wilderness experience.
It is true, as stated on page 35, that most refuge visits are just for the day. But it should be noted that the refuge system provides for a wide range of outdoor experiences—from a few hour walk on the trails of New Jersey’s Great Swamp to a month-long expedition across the trailless Arctic Refuge. And it should be noted that important “uses” of refuges including Arctic are vicarious—the satisfaction and inspiration people find in just knowing these area are here, protected, and available for a visit. The identity and appreciation of the refuge system will be enhanced if the full spectrum of opportunities and benefits is communicated. The attention given to hunting should be more proportionate to this wider spectrum and the wider interests of the American public.
Regarding the Welcome to Your NWR section, it is overly broad in describing visitor services and facilities that could or should be provided on refuges. Again, the point should be made that the refuge system is a spectrum of units that have different purposes and provide different opportunities. Yes, signage, kiosks, observation towers and telling visitors where and when the fish are biting is fully appropriate on some refuges, but less so on others, and at variance with the purpose and special benefits of wilderness refuges. On line 38, it needs to be added that accessibility must not be at the expense of conserving wildlife . . . or meeting other refuge purposes.
Finally, regarding Welcoming Visitors, is the issue of the refuge boundary signs stating “National Wildlife Refuge: Unauthorized Entry Prohibited.” I was 17 when I first encountered these signs and I still remember the negative impression it gave me. What it said to me and friends was: This is a wildlife refuge, so Keep Out. Those signs are still up. So I suggest a recommendation that all such boundary signs be removed from refuges that allow public use.
I live near several refuges that allow no hunting! Hunters, Fisherman have paid pretty much for it all everyone else rides the coatails then people say the focus favors them. Hunting seasons are short compared to the how many days there are in a year.
I don’t know if the following is a legitimate mission to be explored in this section but I’ll voice it and see what happens.
If we are to protect wilderness, we must sooner or later confront the greatest threat to what we’re protecting, and that threat is the growth psychology of humanity, particularly in two areas: (1) population growth; and (2) capital growth. These two perceived imperatives are directly and radically opposed to wilderness protection. Powerful voices must be raised in opposition to these imperatives, and especially must offer some alternative to fulfill the underlying drive that propels them, so that a new imperative can take the place of the threatening ones.
The main alternative I see to population and capital growth is spiritual growth. If we measured ourselves and our cultures by spiritual yardsticks, instead of demographic or economic ones, we would aim our efforts in directions that needn’t oppose and probably would support wilderness protection. A deep and abiding relationship with Mother Earth is a spiritual parameter, and spiritual growth would at least partially be growth in this particular area. The size of our hearts for Mother Earth has much more to do with the size of our souls than the size of our families or the size of our bank accounts ever will. Aligning our cultures with this peception and its underlying value system would do more than anything else to protect wilderness worldwide from every conceivable form of human encroachment. To achieve this, powerful voices must be raised in sustained communication.
Is it legitimate to explore the foregoing in this section?
Ronald,
Thank you for sharing these deep thoughts, they are very constructive for our big conversation. So, I think the bottom line of what you are saying is this: Humans need to value spiritual growth more and the material world less, because that change would cause humans understand that both the increasing rate of our use of natural resources and the increasing human population are in conflict with wilderness conservation, and humans would take actions to reverse both trends; But, you are wondering if it is appropriate to talk about spiritual matters in this section of the vision document or at all?
So first off, let me say that I totally “get” what you are saying and applaud you for bringing up a difficult subject that I bet many of us have thought of. So you are saying, that when people hold spiritual values, that can lead to wise use of natural resources. I do think that is true. On the other hand, people who do not hold spiritual values can and do use natural resources just as wisely as those who hold spiritual values. The bottom line question for me is this: There are lots of tools that cause humans to be conservation minded and take positive actions towards wilderness conservation; which ones should FWS promote? Hmmmm…
Perhaps the very most bottom line is simply that humans need to value the health of our planet a whole lot more than they do right now and that if FWS (and others) can foster that value, then hopefully humans will work more on trends that threaten conservation like our increasing use of natural resources and our increasing population. Perhaps we should promote the value of wildlife conservation or “a land ethic” itself along with promoting/using a few tools that are in harmony with the mission of USFWS?
I do think it is appropriate for FWS to promote the idea that it is good for humans to value wilderness conservation, that is what FWS is all about. As far FWS promoting that value by connecting it to the spiritual realm, I don’t think it’s appropriate for FWS to go down that road….not to say there isn’t an enormous role the spiritual community can (and should?) play in wildlife conservation, there certainly is, but FWS clearly isn’t a spiritual advisor …and shouldn’t try to be.
If we back waaaaay up and view FWS from a cold distance to get a clear detached view….FWS is a government agency…I feel it isn’t appropriate at all for a government agency to advise people on spiritual matters. So even if it is a tool that would lead to wildlife conservation (debatable?), it is a tool best left to the spiritual community.
This is such a complex and yet important area to discuss. For many, spiritual matters are at the very heart of what it means to be human and can not be factored out of any discussions. Being a spiritual person myself, I can fully appreciate that feeling. However, intellectually, I still can not see or accept how we can or should include the spiritual realm in the work of a government agency or the vision process…if you have further thoughts, I’d love to hear them! So….just my two cents worth : )
-Kristin
I agree with much of what Petrocco above says, and in response to Reakoff’s concern re the government and human spirituality, I’d suggest considering a paper on that subject from the Journal of Wilderness. Google it at: “The Spiritual Dimension of Wilderness: A Secular Approach for Resource Agencies”
Thanks Roger : ) I’ll google the document you reference…..it sounds like a great resource, thank you for bringing it to the table.
I am a birder and my birding behavior (e.g., going out in the very early morning and moving silently and relatively unnoticeably so as not to scare the birds) is incompatible with hunting. I have had several scary confrontations with hunters who wave their guns at me and tell me I am not welcome. Even if I am wearing orange (which isn’t a great color to wear when you are trying to be inconspicuous) hunters still believe I shouldn’t be there. I have been told by refuge managers that I have just as much right as the hunters do to be there, but in my experience, the guy with the rifle will always win. I was wondering if any consideration has been given to providing a single no-hunting day during the week (in addition to Sundays) so that people who are not hunters could enjoy nature and feel safe. This would include not just birders but photographers and others who simply want to watch wildlife of all kinds.
I have been with the Washington Office of the NWRS since 1995 and had the privledge to attend the first NWRS conference – Fulfilling the Promise. A document was forthcoming that listed goals and objectives and over the years many were achieved. Some were not.
I applaud those who were a part of this draft. It’s not an easy task by any means but as I read through the majority of the document I noticed similiar threads from Fulfilling, mostly in the introduction of the this draft and introduction to each chapter. I am sure that the Accomplishment Report for the Fulfilling the Promise was reviewed in depth but I would like to ask if any of the goals that were not accomplished are being addressed in this document?
In reviewing this chapter, since my work is in visitor services, I would ask that we look at health as an issue not only for our young but for our other age brackets, and weave that into this chapter. The medical community is starting to chime in on getting outdoors as a healthy alternative. The First Lady has a campaign “Let’s Move” and while this draft document is a plan for 10 years plus out, we shouldn’t dismiss the idea that “Let’s Move” will go away when this administration leaves, but we should embrace the idea and move it to national wildlife refuges. I would like to see that one of the reocmmendations be to partner with the health community in getting kids outdoors.
I also think we need to look beyond the “big six” as times are changing. Not everyone recreates by hunting, fishing, observing or photographing wildlife. Some recreate by picnicing, camping, socializing with extended families in the outdoors. We need to look at how we can bring in these communities.
We also need consistent signage, not just on our entrance signs, but on everything we use to reach out to our audiences. We are the USFWS and that logo should be first and foremost. I’ll bet you don’t see a variation of the NPS arrowhead at their NPS sites and if you showed a visitor the arrowhead (without their wording) they would recognize it right away. If you showed a visitor the FWS logo or the NWRS logo (without wording), I’ll bet you’ll get a blank stare.
In the same vein as branding, the Service is a uniformed agency and we have policy, along with a uniform contract, that dictates the proper wearing of the uniform, yet there are uniform and non-uniform employees wearing non-uniform components purchased outside the uniform contract. We need to take a look at the uniform and why we wear it. We need to ask what message do we want to relay by wearing the uniform. Is it outdated – color and style? Are our demographics changing – a younger workforce so what worked 70 years ago may not work now.
Environmental Education is a “big six” priority. Washington created an EE series and I would ask if it is being used. We also received funding to fund at least one F/T EE position in each region. Did that ever happen? I would like to make a recommendation that we have at least one F/T EE staff at field stations that provide quality EE.
The FWS has over 42,000 volunteers which is equivalent to over 700 FTE’s, almost 1/10th of our workforce. We are depending more and more on the services of these dedicated people. At many field stations coordinating volunteers it is a collateral duty. I would like to make a recommendation that we have at least one F/T Volunteer Coordinator at field stations that have high visitation and programs where a F/T coordinator is needed.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to comment. It’s been a great exercise that I have benefited from.
One of the challenges I found with commenting on this chapter is that there’s very little rationale and justification for the recommendations, which leaves the reading up for vast personal interpretations. I hope that this is addressed in the next version so that there’s a broader understanding and “buy-in” to the vision. Forge ahead and thank you for your time!
The FWS Connecting People With Nature priority has formed and stimulated many active partnerships with other organizations and professionals over the last 4 plus years. These partnerships have all had earth stewardship and the health and well-being of America and the American citizenry in mind. In Region One, we hear that the FWS community profile has been much improved and continues to gain in popularity. While Connecting People with Nature was begun as a full-agency priority and has managed to accomplish many great things, including the Health Champions pilot partnership, an increase in schoolyard habitats, the creation of beautiful tools and materials and innumerable outdoor events that change people’s lives, it has not reached its full potential for integration into all FWS programs and staff. The Region One CPWN team, comprised of representatives from refuges, hatcheries and fisheries, ecological services and law enforcement encourage future interaction with our National Wildlife Refuge System as a primary CPWN tool for inviting and hosting youth and their families in the out of doors. No one program can do it alone! Our budgets need not limit our engagement with one another. In fact, they require and inspire it. The FWS has some of the most talented, resourceful employees on earth, along with the richest of landscapes. Let us all embrace connecting people with nature as a core element of our mission and deliver it wisely and well–that is to say, together–to the American public.
I agree with others that there is some need for visitor centers or places of information that can orient the visiting public to the refuge . In this day and age when so many people live in cities and are increasingly becoming removed from nature, people need to have a sense of place and to connect with nature. Let people feel what it is like to be at one with nature, to listen to nature’s sounds and not loud city noises, and to discover the wonders of nature. One can do this by making the refuge system more welcoming to the visitor. Increasing visitation and understanding of the various refuges will produce a sense of caring and a support for the national wildlife refuge system. Maybe a refuge will become so important to a person that they will want to help protect it. Refuges are for everyone not just for the hunters and fishermen.