[Introduced by Craig Manson]

Thank you all for the dedication you are showing by being here for what will prove to be a momentous week.

You are here to conduct some important work. Over the course of the week, you will put your heads together to map out the beginnings of next century of the National Wildlife Refuge System. This is no small charge. Often, it helps to look back at the past before stepping into the future, and hold before us those ideas that have endured.

A century ago, we came up with such an idea with the creation of the first refuge and the seed of what would grow to become the National Wildlife Refuge System.

This is the legacy that Paul Kroegel and friends tapped into when they convinced Theodore Roosevelt of the legitimacy of their concern-that the natural resources of Pelican Island were being seriously threatened.

Pelican Island was no island unto itself. It was a representative of what was happening elsewhere in the country. As a nation, we had been blessed with a great treasury of natural resources, including abundant wildlife. Roosevelt recognized that we were at risk of squandering this treasury.

The system began to take root at just the right time.

During its first few decades, we were experiencing the deforestation of the eastern United States in the early part of the 20 the century as forests became farms and towns; the slaughter of waterfowl and other bird populations by market hunters; and the ravages of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

We needed to move quickly to conserve and restore the riches of our land and its wildlife.

Another great idea behind Theodore Roosevelt's creation of the refuge system and his founding of the Boone and Crockett Club was that responsible hunters should help in conservation of wildlife populations.

This idea reached its full flower through the wonderful innovation of the Duck Stamp, as well as the excise tax programs benefiting fish and wildlife programs.

The results of these two great ideas-creating a refuge system and tapping into the willingness of wildlife enthusiasts to personally participate in protecting wildlife-have been phenomenal.

Who would have guessed that, 100 years after designating tiny Pelican Island, we would have a system of 544 refuges covering over 95 million acres?

These special places include an array of habitats from barrier islands to bogs, caves to coastal lagoons, ponds to prairies, and mountains to meadows. We provide homes for wildlife-from waterfowl and warblers, to turtles and elk.

[Delighted by Centennial Celebration; thank Bill Horn and Commission Members]

During the centennial year, I was privileged to attend centennial events at refuges all over the country. My visits ranged from a visit to Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge in the Virgin Islands to a celebration in Kenai, Alaska where I was elated to have the opportunity to release an eagle into the wild.

Thank you for culminating that year of celebrations with something even more important-careful thought about the future of our treasured refuge lands. White papers are thought provoking and insightful. Great basis for discussions that will occur this week.

Share my observations and predictions:

Begin century with a strong refuge system
Appreciate the leadership of Steve Williams and Craig Manson
Wonderful staff of career professionals
Dedicated, hard-working, creative and knowledgeable

Budget

When I came into office, I inherited a $300 million refuge operating budget. Your good efforts have yielded significant increases in funding for the refuge system-an additional $88 million. This is a 30 percent increase in the refuge budget. During this timeframe, the Department's budget as a whole increased by only 4 percent.

In addition, over my time in office we have increased personnel at refuges from almost 2700 in 2001 to a proposal of 2980 in next year's budget.

Refuge system will continue to grow

Duck Stamps and exclise tax programs continue to have strong support.
We are experimenting with ways to enhance Duck Stamp revenues without diluting their tie-in with hunting community.
Turn-over of military land.

Just a few weeks back, I had the immense pleasure of dedicating what once been described as "the most polluted square mile on earth" as the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge.

The arsenal, located in Commerce City, Colorado, about 10 miles northeast of downtown Denver, is one of the largest cleanup sites in the country. In 1942, Rocky Mountain was built to manufacture chemical weapons to be used in World War II as a war deterrent. In 1946, some of the facilities were leased to private industry for the production of industrial and agricultural chemicals.

The Arsenal later became a site for chemical agent demilitarization programs. Since 1985, the sole mission of the Arsenal has been environmental remediation. In 1987, the site was listed on EPA's Superfund National Priorities List.

I had been personally involved and interested in the work at the refuge since the early 1990s, when I was serving as the attorney general of Colorado. Then, we successfully ensured that the arsenal received a higher standard of cleanup than it otherwise would have.

Working together, we transformed a vestige of the Cold War into a permanent home for bald eagles, mule deer, white pelicans and hundreds of other species of wildlife. We have also provided people a unique area near an urban setting to enjoy and learn about wildlife and its habitat.

The arsenal is still undergoing cleanup of its soil and groundwater. The April 17th ceremony marked the formal transfer of nearly 5,000 acres out of the 17,000 acres of land at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal from the U.S. Army to the National Wildlife Refuge System. Eventually, when the clean-up of the arsenal is complete, the Army will transfer a total of 15,000 acres to the Service.

2nd observation:

Wildlife related recreation will play an even more important role in the future.
New Jersey Great Swamp
25 miles from Manhattan
400,000 visitors a year
Manhattan residents don't have connection to outdoors; need to provide opportunities for kids to learn about outdoors
Recreation provides that connection

Refuges embody the notion that a healthy environment cannot only coexist with a healthy economy, but that it is in fact essential for a healthy economy. More than 40 million people visit refuges annually and pump more than $800 million into local economies. It is evident that conservation and the recreation are valuable.

Rec fees give us tool to adjust to increased visitation-pending in Congress.

3rd Observation:

Refuge management will be increasingly based on science and we will gain better understanding of how to improve our areas. Hopefully this will allow us to break out of the management by litigation mode.

White paper on science

Healthy forests
Early this year, for example, I went to Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge in the Pacific Northwest.

Turnbull is an example of national wildlife refuges that are using the tools provided by the Healthy Forests Initiative to improve habitat, protect species, and reduce the threat of wildfires. The refuge is doing a great job of restoring the biological health of the forest ecosystem.

Several years ago, the forested habitat at Turnbull refuge was in an unhealthy condition due to decades of fire suppression and selective harvesting of the ponderosa pine. Today, they are using mechanical thinning followed by prescribed fire to restore pin stands to more historic levels, reducing existing densities of 400-600 trees per acre down to 40-60 trees per acre.

Even better example of how forest management can restore a wildlife is Mississippi Sand Hill Crane.
Invasives
Major challenge at refuges
Must be major focus of scientific study
Biological controls often helpful

4th observation

Refuge system cannot do it all alone

Aldo Leopold, the visionary 20th century conservationist, remains a prophet to the entire conservation community.

Leopold called for a land ethic rooted in the American tradition of people working together to accomplish tasks that neither they nor the government could accomplish alone. It would involve the combined efforts of all citizens, each applying a caring hand to the landscape-in backyards, in worksites, on farms and ranches, and in local communities.
In this new land ethic, landowners and people in communities across the nation would be citizen-conservationists.

Many of you were at Pelican Island with me last March as we celebrated the official centennial of the refuge system's creation. Only a handful of you were able to accompany me on the refuge that morning. What I saw was an inspiring testament to the power and influence of refuge friends and community groups.

As I walked along the refuge paths, I saw dozens of local school children hard at work replanting the refuge with native vegetation.

I can think of no stronger way of showing their concern for the refuge than their active participation in restoring this land to its original splendor.

Although these students were clearly learning the lessons that hard work teaches all of us, they were also learning lessons about what it is that makes their community a great place to live-and what it takes to keep it a special place. Children like these will be the conservation leaders of the future.

In many ways, this citizen stewardship ethic has helped grow and nurture the National Wildlife Refuge System. While the refuge system is administered by the federal government, it is still public land and its success can be credited to a strong spirit of community and collaboration.

We hold stewardship responsibilities for refuge lands and resources as our primary mission, but we also need to be good neighbors. Being good neighbors means building partnerships and relationships that will results in improvements to the refuge system and surrounding areas.

Through grants under what we call the Cooperative Conservation Initiative, we are forging partnerships with private groups and citizens. We are helping Leopold's vision of a nation of citizen stewards.

Over the past 3 years, the Department of the Interior has provided more than $1.3 billion in grants to states, tribes, local governments and private landowners through programs that preserve open space, restore habitat for wildlife and protect endangered species.

Today, I am pleased to announce that we are providing $21 million in new grants that will also include funding for on-the-ground conservation work with our partners on refuges.

Under the Challenge Cost Share program, these new grants will help complete 375 conservation projects in conjunction with states, local communities, businesses, landowners, and other partners.

The projects involve more than 1000 partners in 43 states. With partners required to match at least the federal grants, the overall funding for these projects totals more than $52 million.

Our Cooperative Conservation Initiative empowers federal land managers, including those on our National Wildlife refuges, to form partnerships within local communities to better care for the land and its wildlife.

Includes NAWCA, Partners for Fish and Wildlife, Coastal Program, Endangered Species Partnership Grants, and state and tribal wildlife grants.

By promoting such partnerships, we not only leverage federal conservation dollars with private funds but also tap into the ingenuity and local knowledge of the people who live and work on the land.
Many of our partners in this effort are here today and are recipients of Challenge Cost Share Program grants this year.

Partners include The Nature Conservancy, Ducks Unlimited, Friends of the Bosque del Apache, Friends of Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, the National Wild Turkey Federation, Pheasants Forever, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, the Student Conservation Association, Trout Unlimited, and the Wildlife Society.

These partnerships are achieving substantial conservation benefits.

With our partners, we have restored million of acres of habitat; removed invasive exotic species; replanted native grasses; improved riparian habitat along thousands of miles of streams; conserved limited water resources; and developed conservation plans for endangered species and their habitat.

I am very optimistic about the future of our National Wildlife Refuge System. Because, as important as the number of refuges and the acres they encompass, so too is the number of hearts, minds, and hands that we enlist to the cause of conservation.

Although it may be impossible for a land surveyor to measure, true growth of the refuge system-and the conservation for that matter-lies in the ethics that we pass on.

Chief Seattle: "If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit."

We must continue to nurture the refuge system with Leopold's vision still in mind. A hundred years has passed since Roosevelt planted that first seed in what has become a lush garden: it is up to all of us now to tend to the garden and keep it healthy and vibrant for the future generations of citizen stewards.