National Wildlife Refuge Friends in Action Conference

I am grateful for the way that your Friends groups have become true friends of the refuges. Real friendship is a rare thing, only proven after time and need.

A commentator once observed, "Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate."

But that has been exactly the opposite with the national wildlife refuges. Friends and volunteers like you have accumulated. You have become essential partners as stewards of the refuges.

Each of you puts muscle into emotion. You put your hands where your hearts are. Together with those who work in the Fish and Wildlife Service, you make our refuges retreats for wildlife and places of rest for people.

Great relationships have developed between the refuges and their friends and volunteers. Friends and volunteers give to refuges, refuges and refuge staffs give back to their friends in the communities. The partners endure together; they grow together; they prosper together.

The refuges and communities in the paths of Hurricanes Ivan and Charley show the power of those relationships.

Bon Secour Refuge

Take the Bon Secour Refuge. "Bon Secour" means "safe harbor." The refuge lies on a narrow, 22-mile long peninsula that juts into the Gulf of Mexico. It is a permanent home for the endangered Alabama beach mouse and a temporary resting place for many migratory birds.

That safe harbor was anything but last September, when the eye of terrible Ivan passed directly over part of the refuge.

Damage was catastrophic. The massive storm pushed a wall of debris onto the refuge. Lumber was littered all about. Boats, gas cans and propane tanks were scattered as far as the eye could see around Little Lagoon, Gator Lake, and the refuge's remote marshes.

Many homes in the nearby Gulf Shores were also destroyed. According to the Palm Beach Post, "Ivan's estimated 30-foot storm surge overwhelmed the bays of the western Panhandle, eviscerated dozens of homes down to their foundations and left others as bare skeletons, ready to crumble in the next stiff breeze."

Those in the impact area had their own homes and yards to clean up. They had streets to clear and businesses to build back up. The refuge could have easily been a second thought for members of the community - or forgotten altogether.

Yet even during the emergency, the friends of the refuge did not let their friend down. The Friends of Bon Secour called. So did the Boy Scouts. So did other volunteers. Then they came down to help.

The Friends picked up load after load of trash from the beach. They put a newsletter together, which told their friends about the conditions of the refuge. The stories brought the damage - and the recovery - alive for those who love the refuge.

The refuge manager said he tried to hold the volunteers and Friends group back, fearing for their safety. He has not been fully successful. Friends groups are expected to begin a dune restoration soon; they may begin an "adopt a mile" program as the refuge restoration proceeds.

Are any of the friends or volunteers from Bon Secour in the audience? Let us give them around of applause.

Those friends and volunteers did not work alone. For two weeks after Ivan struck, an incident team from the Fish and Wildlife Service worked 14-hour days to restore the refuge.

The sixty team members cleared four miles of refuge roads and trails; they collected 1,200 containers of hazardous materials; and they removed more than 800 cubic yards of debris.

Fish and Wildlife employees at Bon Secour could have spent all their time working at the refuge. Like their counterparts in the community, they had plenty of their own to care for. Instead, they found sometimes unexpected ways to help the community.

The staff helped clear the roads for three inholdings on the refuge. Uniformed Fish and Wildlife Service employees - including the Fire crew - provided a solid security presence that deterred looting. No other agency was so visible.

Members of the refuge staff also worked to ensure that the many disabled watercraft pushed onto the refuge were returned to their owners.

According to refuge manager Rob Cail, one of the boats was a very old one - a family heirloom. Although battered and bruised, it had survived the storm. The owner was delighted to reclaim the boat that his grandfather had steered.

Those extra efforts by members of the Fish and Wildlife Service meant a lot to the community, just as the efforts by friends groups meant a lot to the Fish and Wildlife Service. They literally helped restore one another.

Ding Darling Refuge

A similar friendship proved itself at the J.N. Ding Darling Refuge in Florida. The refuge is on a barrier island that lay directly in the path of Hurricane Charley.

Charley was a category 4 storm when it hit the refuge. Charley's sustained winds of 145 miles per hour damaged buildings and shredded trees.

In addition to the damage to the refuge, employees also suffered personal losses. But that did not stop them from going to work on the refuge and in the community.

About 100 Fish and Wildlife service employees cleared trees and power lines. A group of 20 officers provided round-the-clock security on Capitva and Santibel islands. They were the only security forces that prevented looting before homeowners were allowed back.

Fish and Wildlife Service crews also cleared about 100 trees per mile off of roads and power lines. In a mere 100 hours, they completed work that the community could not have done in two weeks.

The crews who worked in 98-degree heat to clear debris from the hurricane had the support of Friends of the refuge. Well before emergency supplies arrived, the Friends brought simple necessities like water and Gatorade for the crews.

The two Friends groups in the area - the Ding Darling Wildlife Society and the Merritt Island Wildlife Association - worked together to collect funds for the refuge. Some of the friends donated funds to pay staff overtime.

The support of the Friends group came as no surprise - even during the aftermath of the hurricane. The Ding Darling Wildlife Society has a long history of support for the refuge. Started 22 years ago, it is one of our oldest friends groups.

Take Pride

There was another group of Interior volunteers that helped with hurricane restoration. Like you, they are a living example of the power of friendship.

Take Pride in America is a national network of volunteers who take pride in our public lands. Their efforts are coordinated in Washington D.C.; works shine from coast to coast.

More than 100 Take Pride in America events helped with hurricane restoration. More than 400,000 hours of volunteer service were promised to future cleanup efforts during Take Pride in America's pledge drive in Florida.

I am glad that the National Wildlife Refuge Association supports Take Pride in America. There are a number of exciting events coming up that I hope you will join us in supporting.

Last year, Take Pride did about 2,000 events. Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts have gotten involved. So have school groups and even corporations like the Walt Disney Company.

There will be many ways to join in this year. For instance, there will be thousands of events during the Great American Cleanup, which runs from March through May. It is being sponsored by Keep America Beautiful, another Take Pride Charter Partner.

Take Pride will be partnering in many other efforts on public lands this year. I hope you will get involved.

The Fish and Wildlife Service, in partnership with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the National Wildlife Refuge Association, has a National Wildlife Refuge Friends Group Grant Program.

To date, the grant program has awarded more than $1.1 million through 290 grants. Those grants have gone to more than 160 Friends groups which support about 175 national wildlife refuges.

Last year, the President signed and Executive Order on Cooperative Conservation. The order commits federal agencies to becoming a good neighbor and a good friend in conservation. To underscore that commitment, and to fulfill the purpose of that order, there will be a conference on cooperative conservation later this year.

Under President Bush, the Interior Department and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have already made substantial investments in conservation. The budget that we are unveiling on Monday will continue our strong commitment to conservation.

Wetlands

On Earth Day last year, President Bush announced an aggressive new national goal for wetlands stewardship. Over the next five years, the President has told federal agencies to create, improve and protect at least three million new acres of wetlands, creating new habitat each year.

This past fall, President Bush told Field and Stream magazine that one of his primary conservation goals in his second term would be to fully implement the wetlands policy, to move from "no net loss" to an overall increase.

We are going to work toward that goal. Following the President's directive, the Fish and Wildlife Service is preparing a nation-wide analysis of wetlands status and trends. Several federal agencies are cooperatively funding the study, which is expected to be completed by next December 31st.

North American Waterfowl Management Plan

One of the best mechanisms we have for supporting waterfowl conservation is the North American Wetlands Conservation Act. First passed in 1989, this Act provides matching grants to individuals, agencies and organizations which have come together for the purpose of wetlands conservation. Partners must match the grant request on at least a 1-1 ratio.

To date, more than $600 million has been invested through the act and Partners have contributed almost $2 billion in additional funds.

The money tells only part of the story. Since the program was first signed into law in 1989, partners have worked to conserve more than 20 million acres of habitat across the continent, including Canada and Mexico.

I am glad that Ernesto Enkerlin the President of Mexico's National Commission of Natural Protected Areas has joined us today.

Another great program that benefits wetlands, waterfowl, and wildlife is the Duck Stamp Program.

Duck Stamp sales support our common goal of wildlife conservation. Since 1934, when the program was established, Sales of Duck Stamps have raised more than $700 million to help conserve more than 5 million acres of prime bird habitat in the National Wildlife Refuge System.

Sage grouse

The sage grouse is another example of the great successes of cooperative conservation. Populations of that bird had been in decline for decades. But sage grouse populations have stabilized, and might even be on the rebound, thanks to an unprecedented conservation effort.

The leaders of the 11 Western states with sage grouse populations came together with everyone who was willing and able - ranchers, farmers and state and federal land managers. Tribes came together as did power companies and even Canadian provinces.

Much of the effort was focused on almost 8 million acres of private lands - more than 500 private landowners are working to preserve the sage grouse.

As a result of those conservation efforts, the sage grouse was not listed under the Endangered Species Act. Earlier this month, Steve Williams, the Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, followed the studied advice of service biologists and decided that the listing of the sage grouse was not warranted.

Those efforts must continue. The recent decision is not an end to sage grouse conservation, but rather the beginning of a new effort. Conservation should not be a set of sudden stops and starts, but rather a continuous process of renewal.

There are many more ways to partner with us in conservation. To learn more about our 4 C's approach to conservation, please attend the panel discussion at 1:45 tomorrow afternoon on the long-term needs of the refuge system.

There, Bob Lamb, Interior's Senior Advisor on budget and management, will describe how we are improving our ability to work with you in achieving our conservation goals cooperatively. Bob speaks from his decades of experience with the Interior's budget, but he will also provide more information about how partners are adding an extra dimension to the work we are accomplishing together.

There is a lot more that we can do. Ronald Reagan once observed that "The most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.' "

But even as federal employees can act as friends, the government itself can act like a good neighbor. Extraordinary acts of conservation can happen when citizens become partners in the work of Interior.

In his second inaugural address, President Bush spoke of his dream of building an ownership society. That dream is larger than a single program or agency. It is a vision of an entire culture of service and stewardship.

You are more than friends and partners; you are citizens and stewards. Together, we are doing great things at our national wildlife refuges. We can do even more for our country.

Thank you.