Chapter 2a: Doing the Right Things in the Right Places: Conservation Planning and Management
The expansive new challenges we face from environmental stressors such as climate change and increasing fragmentation of wildlife habitats demand that we take a broad, landscape-level approach to our conservation actions. Such an approach requires that we tap into the knowledge base of our neighbors and partner agencies and organizations to help identify conservation priorities, and that we address these issues using State Wildlife Action Plans, other federal agency plans and conservation organization’s strategic plans.
BOX: Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) are public-private partnerships that transcend political and jurisdictional boundaries and take a collaborative, scientific approach to managing wildlife, habitats and cultural resources.
The Service works closely with state fish and wildlife agencies, recognizing our shared authority and responsibility for managing fish and wildlife on national wildlife refuges. This federal-state partnership, grounded in mutual respect, is essential to effective conservation work. We must build on this important relationship, widen our perspective beyond the boundaries of state and nation, and consider the impacts our actions have on species that regularly cross borders, such as migratory birds, and determine how we can help meet international conservation goals. The larger consortium of partners gathered by LCCs will also contribute to our planning efforts. Through the LCCs, we are adding scientific capacity to do better biological planning and conservation design that will inform our land protection strategies and improve conservation delivery.
For such a landscape-level approach to succeed, it must be based on quantifiable conservation objectives, including population objectives for target species. This will allow us to clearly identify the purpose and judge the relative priority of a project, determine how it fits in with the efforts of others, measure the success of our efforts, and to adapt and improve our work over time—an approach known as ‘adaptive
management.’
Vision: We embrace a scientific, landscape-level approach to conserving, managing and restoring refuge lands and waters, and work to project conservation benefits beyond our boundaries.
In the past, we focused largely on what happened within our refuge boundaries. in isolation from the landscapes around them. Today, we realize we must view and manage refuge lands as pieces of fabric woven into a landscape-level tapestry of conservation. We must engage our neighbors, conservation partners and surrounding communities in creative conservation strategies to achieve our collective species- and ecosystems-management goals. In addition, conservation strategies should advance hemispheric partnerships to conserve migratory birds, wide-ranging animals and marine mammals.
BOX: Adaptive management: A deliberate, science-‐based process for decision-‐making in the face of uncertainty. This approach treats management actions as experiments, and uses the outcomes of those experiments to inform and improve future actions. Because it is based on a continual learning process, adaptive management improves long -‐ term management outcomes.
We must collaborate effectively with a wide array of partners to leverage resources, avoid duplication of effort, and collectively develop and implement mutually beneficial solutions. This collaborative landscape-level approach applies equally to our long-term planning efforts and to our day-to-day management decisions. While we have started working “beyond the boundaries” in some places, including internationally, we must do better. Taking this broader approach will allow us to identify potential threats and conflicts and develop innovative solutions to those challenges. It will also allow us to share best practices and capitalize on opportunities. This mindset will also encourage refuge staff to work with local landowners, nearby communities and other conservation partners and strengthen community ties.
