Sometime near the end of 2012, the Refuge System will feel a great sense of accomplishment when it completes comprehensive conservation plans (CCPs) for every national wildlife refuge. The joy will be short lived because some plans will be more than a decade old in 2012. Some plans were visionary in dealing with complex issues such as sea level rise, while others got caught in whirlpools of controversy and barely maintained the status quo.
Recommendation: Begin an after-action review of the first round of CCPs, capture lessons learned, and update the planning policy prior to the next round of planning. The updated planning policy should consider how the plans meet not only the needs of the wildlife refuge, but also can collectively inform the Refuge System’s management.
The schedule for the second round of CCPs should place priority on refuge climate change adaptation planning that is needed most. This round will play a critical role in recommending refuge expansions, migrations and other changes to deal with the effects of changing climate conditions. These new CCPs will be integral to the plans for strategic growth of the Refuge System.
Many things have changed since the first round of planning began. All states now have State Wildlife Action Plans that inform refuge CCPs. The Refuge System Inventory and Monitoring Blueprint is ready for wildlife refuges to include in their plans. The Service’s Climate Change Strategic Plan informs adaptation planning on wildlife refuges. Landscape Conservation Cooperatives can assist in understanding and communicating the conservation benefits of wildlife refuges beyond their boundaries and within the context of the greater, surrounding landscape. Wilderness stewardship policy is in place and gives wildlife refuges the tools to assure a comprehensive review of wilderness resources during the next round of planning. All of these factors will help improve future plans.
The next round of planning will not only update refuge management strategies, but must also describe how the wildlife refuge fits in the greater surrounding. These plans will be flexible enough to adapt to new situations and issues. Those who read them will come away with a clear understanding of what is expected. Refuge staff members who implement them should be inspired to act with a firm grasp of the overall intent.
Recommendation: In new comprehensive conservation plans, describe how the Service can use all its conservation delivery tools to project conservation benefits beyond refuge boundaries across the landscape.
Comment below and/or move on to Chapter 3 - Conservation Science and the Refuge System
8 Comments in this post »
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Increase the effectiveness of the planning effort so that it also includes the ability to evaluate or re-evaluate the specific purpose of a given Refuge. With climate change, changing population objectives, invasive spoecies, land development (including mitigation banking and other efforts)– the role of a given reffuge may change. I often here that planning is restricted due to legislated or administratively derived “purpose” of the Refuge. The p[lanning process should include a review and recommendations that offers potential administrative and/or legislative changes, if needed. This could delay plans, but it seems crucial if refuge planning is really going to be landscape-level and strategic.
In response to David Patte’s comment on Refuge Purposes – please note that the Refuge Purposes Database is in need of updating and improvement. There should be better documentation of Refuge Establishment Authorities – which may be similar, but different from Refuge Purposes in many cases, along with clearly documented Executive, Legislative and Administrative Refuge Purposes, and finally documentation of Refuge establishment focal areas (habitats, species, etc). The latter is important, but could be logically changed under a CCP process. Ideally, the Refuge CCP process would help to identify errors, omissions and corrections to the database, and improve it. The idea of expanding Refuge Purposes (not necessarily changes purposes) due to changing conditions as Mr. Patte notes is also a worthy consideration.
We should strive for a NWRS Objectives Data Base that relates to our Refuge Performance Measures. As the first round of CCPs are completed, we should upload all NWRS Objectives for biological, ecological, visitor services, cultural resources, facilities, etc., for each refuge. An analysis of these objectives on a geographic basis (with help of GIS) will help to delineate such things as the number of acres we are currently managing for certain species and habitats, and what our plans are for changes. The changes should be documented as they are made, annually, and as CCPs are updated. Further analysis of such information should allow us to see – as a NWR System – what our priorities are, what species and habitats we are emphasizing, and perhaps determining where we have too much focus or duplication of effort in some areas, and some gaps or suggestions for addressing changes or other priorities in other areas. Likewise, as we plan and address opportunities for new refuge or other conservation areas and work collaboratively with others, such a database should help add to the knowledge base for greater and more meaningful conservation planning priorities and purposes.
I think the idea of establishing a nationwide objectives database is a great one. In the Pacific Southwest Region, Inventory and Monitoring staff have begun to do just that. Quality CCP objectives should be the heart of refuge I&M programs and it makes sense to store objectives in a standardized, national system.
It might be benefical for the NWRS to develop a systematic approach (and related guidance documents) to ensure the Service conducts refuge planning within a larger landscape (e.g., ecoregion) context. We should assess each refuge’s contribution to, and clarify each refuge’s role within, the larger conservation effort undertaken by multiple conservation agencies and organizations. Refuge comprehensive conservation planning issues should be “scoped” with conservation agencies and organizations throughout the ecoregion to assess where collective management actions are failing to address conservation issues. It might also be benefical for us planners to take a systematic approach towards the development of refuge comprehensive conservation plans and related NEPA documents to ensure consistency and reflect the concept of a national system.
A Refuge/Friends Partnership Strategic Plan should be added in the “suite” of Step-Down Plans for comprehensive plans.
State agencies should be given ample opportunity to provide input on planning to ensure that NWRS CCPs and state Wildlife Management Area planning are compatible.
Build a CCP-CMP link. CMP=Conservation Measures Partnership. There is enormous potential for public-NGO collaboration in linking conservation plans and planning tools & frameworks. Find where measures of success, conservation targets, and monitoring align (or can be better aligned) and we can all focus on investing scarce resources in the most effective conservation activities.