Residential and industrial development, resource extrction and harmful public uses are at the doorstep of our most prized wildlife lands and waters. Unless we take immediate action to counter these threats, the future of America’s wildlife heritage is at risk. While refuges encompass an abundance of the most biologically rich habitats in America, a vast majority of the 548 refuges are small in size and depend heavily on adjacent private, state and federal lands for wildlife foraging and corridors, and to ensuring adequate quantities of clean water.
In response, the National Wildlife Refuge Association (NWRA) in 2005 launched Beyond the Boundaries, a project designed to utilize State Wildlife Action Plans, refuge Comprehensive Conservation Plans (CCP) and other comprehensive wildlife habitat assessments in protecting conservation landscapes surrounding and linking refuges and other vital habitats. State Wildlife Action Plans, completed in every state and territory, recognize the problem of growth and development and make it abundantly clear that our country’s wildlife has never faced greater challenges than it does today. Simply put, America’s wildlife is in trouble, and Beyond the Boundaries is an important initiative to reverse this alarming trend.
What is Beyond the Boundaries?
Refuges are rich in wildlife and in all Wildlife Action Plans highlighted refuges as vital in the protection and conservation of wildlife in each state. Beyond the Boundaries is a bold effort to conserve the landscapes surrounding refuges that will ensure their long-term ecological integrity. With a rich base in wildlife diversity, refuges offer a strategic jumping off point to create protected landscapes to keep common wildlife common and bring back rare and endangered species as called for by the State Wildlife Action Plans.
Unfortunately though, refuges in the lower forty-eight states and Hawaii are small in size. Of the 100-million-acres within the Refuge System, fewer than 20 million acres are located outside of Alaska’s 16 refuges. Diminutive but rich in biodiversity, these refuges have flourished while surrounded by private rural lands providing important complementary wildlife habitat. Today the alarming rush to convert rural land to subdivisions and strip malls has caught wildlife managers off guard and requires quick action.
In response, the NWRA in August of 2005 sounded a clarion call with the release of its Beyond the Boundaries report highlighting the threats to refuges. As a follow-up, NWRA has brought together refuge Friends volunteers and refuge professionals from across the country in a series of national and local workshops to teach them about these disturbing land-use trends and provide them with the information and tools to take action locally. By providing training in the tools, strategies and resources available to achieve conservation successes on adjacent private, state and federal lands, these workshops and continued outreach are laying the foundation for major conservation successes in the next several years.
Refuge supporters are eager to take action when introduced to the Beyond the Boundaries concept; many who had never thought to get involved with issues outside their refuge have become passionate voices for the broader conservation landscape once given the skills, guidance and support. Intensive follow-up includes face-to-face meetings and frequent communication via e-mail and phone.
In addition to engaging Friends groups, NWRA’s Beyond the Boundaries campaign includes the development of “Refuge Landscape Action Plans” to protect wildlife landscapes while crafting strategies for marshalling public support and resources for implementation. These vision plans combine the science of individual state Wildlife Action Plans and other conservation planning tools, including refuge Comprehensive Conservation Plans, to identify important lands and waters where on-the-ground conservation will have the greatest impact on conserving biodiversity. Mandated by the 1997 Refuge Improvement Act, CCPs detail the management and acquisition goals of refuges over a span of 10-15 years.
Linking national wildlife refuges with state and private lands to achieve broader landscape conservation solutions, these Refuge Landscape Action Plans bring to bear the support of refuge Friends groups and other partners who will work within their communities to shape and implement these Plans to ensure the ecological integrity of refuge landscapes.
By working closely with refuge Friends and by coalescing diverse partner organizations that have otherwise not collaborated toward mutual objectives, we are leading refuge managers and refuge Friends to adopt a broad conservation vision that reaches out to non-traditional partners in surrounding communities.
Beyond the Boundaries builds landscape conservation solutions with the overarching goals of:
• Keeping common wildlife common;
• Creating conservation strategies for rare and watch-list species;
• Establishing landscape ecosystem conservation strategies that emphasize protecting water quality and availability, and maintenance of habitat corridors;
• Developing conservation strategies that de-list endangered wildlife, and
• Increasing wildlife oriented recreation as a way of 1) fostering greater appreciation among Americans for national wildlife refuges and wildlife conservation, and 2) strengthening local economies.
In 2008, NWRA will launch or expand efforts in Southern Nevada, the Oregon Coast, the San Luis Valley in Colorado, the middle Rio Grande valley in New Mexico, Wisconsin’s Rock River Watershed and the Delmarva Peninsula.
The Importance of Partnerships
To achieve success, the National Wildlife Refuge Association is advancing its Beyond the Boundaries project through diverse strategic partnerships. Accordingly, we work closely with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, states, refuge Friends groups, local, regional and national land trusts, and a host of other diverse conservation interests.
