Remarks of the Honorable Dirk Kempthorne, Secretary of the Interior
Geoff Haskett, FWS Chief National Wildlife Refuge System
National Wildlife Refuge Week: Time to Connect With Nature
10/11/2007
The second week of October is National Wildlife Refuge Week. Last year more than 39 million people visited America’s refuge system to take pictures, observe nature, learn about and interpret nature and of course hunting and fishing. Geoff Haskett is the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Chief of the National Wildlife Refuge System. Hunting and fishing is a very important part of the refuge mission isn’t it.
“Well yea, I mean hunting and fishing is one of the biggest parts of the refuge system and it’s certainly a major part of our history. In fact we’ve set aside a lot of acres over the years specifically because of monies from the hunting community through the sale of the Duck Stamp and folks in those communities probably are some of the biggest conservationist around in terms of wanting to protect what’s out there and make sure that the wildlife we all care so much about actually will have places to live and prosper.”
The system has prospered. President Theodore Roosevelt began the National Wildlife Refuge system in 1903 with Pelican Island off the coast of Florida and now the system has 548 wildlife refuges and protects more than 96 million acres of fish and wildlife habitat. Wet, dry, hot, cold, refuges really have something for everyone and everything.
“Well I mean we have all kinds of habitats. We’ve got wetlands, we’ve got bottomland hardwoods, we’ve got high desert areas, we’ve got prairie grasslands. We just have a huge diversity of different types of wildlife habitats in the system across the country from Alaska down into Florida.”
The weeklong celebration is also part of a yearlong commemoration of the 100th birthday of pioneering conservationist and writer Rachel Carson and it’s the 10th anniversary of the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act. What kind of impact has that had on refuges?
“It’s made a huge difference, in fact that’s one of the things we’re celebrating quite a bit this week. Before the improvement act the refuge system wasn’t really a true system. We had lots of different units out there established for lots of different reasons and one of the things the improvement act did was establish consistent language that gives us a common mission, management, purpose so we can truly actually manage the refuge system as a system and not a lot of different places doing a lot of different things.”
During National Wildlife Refuge Week many of the activities at refuges are aimed at getting children connected with nature. Many people don’t realize that they may live close to a refuge and that connecting with nature could benefit them and their children, right?
“We believe that across the United States, close to any big city, you’re for the most part within an hour, hour and a half of a national wildlife refuge somewhere. And again, people have not necessarily known about them, people have grown up next door to them and never stepped on them. So one of the things we try to do is make sure people know they’re out there and they are close by and they are accessible and they are very important. There was an oversight hearing on the Hill where our director Dale Hall testified and he spoke pretty eloquently about why its so important to connect children and the populace with nature and that if we don’t do that there’s not going to be a whole lot of reason for us to exist even, you know 20, 30 years from now, if we lose those kind of connections that people ought to have with nature. So its certainly one of the things in the refuge system and the Fish and Wildlife Service that’s a huge deal for us; making sure that we do connect with not just kids, we talk about children a lot, but just people overall the American public and allow them to enjoy again that connection that is so important for all of us. I think it’s important to your soul and your mental health and your well-being and your physical well-being and just connecting with nature is just going to be a good thing that you’ll be glad if you do it.”
Geoff Haskett, Chief of the National Wildlife Refuge System. This has been a PODCAST from the Department of the Interior Radio News Service. I’m Ron Tull, Washington.