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Southeast Region
Fiscal Years
2016 - 2018
Regional Priorities

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Our Story

We live and work in an amazing part of the country. The Southeastern United States is among the most biologically diverse hotspots in the world. Our Region includes Caribbean and coastal islands, marshes, coral reefs, the Appalachian and Ozark Mountains, caves, and longleaf and shortleaf pine and bottomland hardwood forests. Our work ensures that fish and wildlife populations continue in those places for the benefit of the American people.

Sources: NatureServe,  U.S. Forest Service’s Southern Research Station in Asheville.

In the Southeast, the Service is in the midst of a period where the magnitude of conservation challenges facing America’s fish and wildlife resources can be daunting.

Accelerating housing development,

Forest cleared to make way for a low-density housing development
Housing development in Metro Atlanta

sea-level rise,

Dead tree trunks emerge from the shallow waters that border Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge
Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge

more intense storms,

An aerial photograph showing four breaches with on inlet in NC 12 on Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge
Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge

increased land use changes,

Map of urban areas from 2009Map of projected urbanization by 2060

Use your mouse to drag the green divider left/right to see the projected change in urbanization.
On left, the initial urban land cover in 2009. On right, projected urban land cover in 2060. (See source)

habitat loss and fragmentation,

A monarch butterfly perched on the bright pink flowers of a swamp milkweed plant on Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge
A monarch butterfly on a swamp milkweed plant

increased occurrence and abundance of invasive species,

Two biologists holding a massive catfish by the gills roughly half of their size
An invasive flathead catfish

poorer water quality,

Dark water discharge from Lake Okeechobee mixing with pristine blue water
Poor water quality along Florida's coast

a public largely disconnected from nature,

The crowded streets and sidewalks of New York City's Times Square
Times Square, New York City

and many other issues create noteworthy challenges for those of us charged with conserving and protecting these resources.

About 92% of the land in the Southeast is in private ownership creating both opportunities and challenges. History shows that our Nation faced challenges before, e.g., the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s, and we have always risen up to meet those challenges.

With a conservation goal of ensuring self-sustaining populations of native fish and wildlife across landscapes, the Service has a clear responsibility to provide leadership in addressing these challenges.

Continual progress over the long term is crucial if we are to remain relevant to future generations as the world’s premier conservation agency. Our challenge as conservation leaders is to produce the best results with available resources, using principles of conservation science to guide our resource management actions and to ensure that landscapes can support healthy, sustainable fish and wildlife populations. How we do this, and the consequences of our actions, are hugely important to all Americans, including the next generation of conservation leaders who will come after us. Their future success is dependent upon us.

Our Mission

The mission of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service is, "... working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people."

As we move forward through a new century of conservation, the vision of the Southeast Region is to focus on the following as regional priorities. These three identified priorities flow directly from our mission and are intended to help us focus our efforts to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

People

Our people, our partners and our public empower our people to continue to foster a diverse workforce of hardworking, talented, and dedicated professionals and a culture of inspired and passionate conservationists; connect with all of our traditional and nontraditional partners; and engage the public to value and participate in stewardship of our shared resources.

Lands and Waters

Design and deliver science-driven conservation across all land and water scapes.

Fish, Wildlife, and Plants

Manage fish, wildlife, and plant populations whether declining and too few, overabundant, or stable.

Our Conservation Principles

For nearly a decade, our Region has followed the following guiding principles we all hold as professional resource managers and ethical public servants.

Communication

Our actions are based on open and honest dialogue.

Science

Our work is grounded in credible, objective science.

Stewardship

Our commitment is to conserve natural resources for future generations.

Service

flag

It is our privilege to serve the American people.

Professionalism

We hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards, strive for excellence, and respect others.

Partnerships

We emphasize partnerships using creative and innovative approaches, where needed.

People

We recognize our employees, volunteers, and partners as critical to our conservation success.

Legacy

Our goal is to ensure the future of natural resource conservation by connecting people with nature.

Our reputation and credibility will be based on our vision, our conservation principles, our priorities and the discipline to make them real. These will be the foundation for shaping our future, and drive decisions about where we should allocate the majority of our people and resources.

Our Business Approach to Conservation

Whether your position is in a biological, administrative or any other series, the adaptive management approach (also called lessons learned) applies to your position. The Service’s framework for adaptive management is called Strategic Habitat Conservation which helped put focus on our foundational business approach (plan, design, implement, and monitor) to achieve landscape and watershed scale conservation.

This graphic is an illustration of how the Service achieves its priorities for landscape and watershed conservation through its operational paradigm.

Diagram of the adaptive management process

To achieve true large scale conservation, the Service must establish measurable biological and habitat objectives for priority resources and species. Given the diverse land ownership and resource authorities, the Service best achieves its goals by establishing voluntary partnerships with the appropriate entities.

The primary foundation for our success is the scientific expertise of the Service and our partners. We cannot establish achievable resource goals for fish and wildlife without foundational science to direct our efforts. The second foundational component is the involvement of the public. This involvement must go beyond passive support, and rely on an inspired, engaged and active public.

The center of the triangle illustrates the central importance of the adaptive management framework. The Strategic Habitat Conservation framework is the science based process through which the Service works with our partners and our public to develop measurable objectives and to design, implement and evaluate landscape conservation delivery. Implementing Strategic Habitat Conservation is critical to the Service’s success in achieving conservation at a landscape scale by delivering the most effective conservation actions in the most efficient manner.

By 2018, the Service will advance our effort to secure healthy, self-sustaining populations of the Region’s native fish and wildlife and save its wild places by working with all stakeholders within the landscape to influence decisions and shape conservation efforts of the future as we look forward to the year 2060.

Our Conservation Goal

Time is urgent. We must act now.

Cities are getting bigger.

Rural communities are getting smaller.

Sea levels are rising.

Storms are becoming shorter and more intense.

Land use changes are occurring rapidly.

The pace of habitat loss and fragmentation is increasing.

The increased occurrence and abundance of invasive species are consuming natural resources at an alarming rate.

Poor water quality and competing demands for water are a growing challenge for our Region's people and its fish and wildlife simultaneously.

And finally the pressures of society have disconnected large chunks of our region’s population from nature and the outdoors.

These and many other issues create noteworthy challenges for those of us charged with conserving and protecting these fish, wildlife and plants. Why 2060? Many researchers, scientists, and planners are using the year 2060 as a reference point for talking about the landscape changes like urbanization that are taking place at an extraordinary pace across the Southeast.

It gives us a reference point to crystalize our desire to influence what the desired future landscape across the Southeast might look like and also a way to begin measuring the effectiveness of our efforts.

Map of emerging 'Megaregions' throughout the Nation

Therein lies the urgency of our work for our children and the next generation.

As a conservation agency, wild places and wild things are often the primary focus of what we do on a day-to-day basis, but we must often stop to remind ourselves that it is people who are essential to our success.
A law enforcement officer holding a seized baby alligator
Baby alligator seized by Law Enforcement
Our mission begins and ends with people. It is our employees, partners, and volunteers who provide the skills, creativity, dedication, and innovation that allow us to accomplish all of the things that we do.

Our Regional Priorities

Building on more than a century of conservation, the Southeast Region continues to refine and adapt our complex and innovative portfolio of conservation tools to deal with the challenges of the 21st century. The following three broad priorities and components are intended to focus our efforts for furthering our mission and conservation goals. Programs will use these priorities to develop goals and activities.

The challenges of today have outgrown any single agency approach. It will take a combined effort of many public and private organizations to deal with the landscape‐scale issues facing us all. Moreover, we must be ever vigilant to engage our communities and inspire our public to be natural resource stewards whose support is essential to long-term success.

A USFWS employee shows a group of children the iNature app at a National Wildlife Refuge
Ranger with children at Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge

We will promote hunting, fishing, wildlife observation, and nature photography as a means to connect people with nature and provide for sustainable resource utilization. Similarly, we will encourage environmental education programs and interpretive resources to raise awareness of our mission, how we implement it, and how it benefits the public. We must continue to expand on existing, and seek out new outreach efforts and recreational opportunities in order to remain relevant to the American people and generate the appreciation and enthusiasm that is needed to fuel the next generation of conservationists.

People

A group of students poses for a photo in front a a stream
Student Conservation Association

Examples

Our Partners

A biologist wearing a yellow hard hat in a forest
North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission

Examples

Our Public

Elementary school students pose for a photo holding a sea turtle
Elementary school students posing with a sea turtle

Examples

Lands and Water

We work across broad Southeastern landscapes and watersheds to address complex conservation challenges. This effort is called “All Hands, All Lands*, All Wildlife,” which describes the collective work of all employees across our ten state and Caribbean islands region. We work with partners and the public on a landscape and watershed scale to protect, conserve, and enhance our unique land and water systems.

A group of canoers navigates a narrow stream
Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge

Using Strategic Habitat Conservation as the foundation to our business approach, we acquire, manage and restore aquatic, wetland, and terrestrial resources on our National Wildlife Refuges and National Fish Hatcheries and provide technical assistance on other public and private lands as the Southeast tackles the challenges of urbanization, habitat conversion, climate change, invasive species, etc. We will strive for excellence in our landscape and watershed scale initiatives and will be regarded as trusted conservation leaders.

Examples:

Fish, Wildlife, and Plants

As the world’s premier conservation agency we will manage fish, wildlife, and plant populations whether overabundant, declining, or stable. Our work controls exotic and invasive species, conserves At-Risk species, recovers ESA listed species, and restores fish and wildlife habitats. We provide science to help plan and design landscapes based on the best technology and information. We conduct and facilitate inventory, monitoring, and science to understand population status and how populations are responding to our actions. We communicate, coordinate, and collaborate with States and other partners to ensure our management efforts are additive. We seek new technologies to ensure our work is state‐of‐the art.

Too Few

A greyish brown fish in front of a rocky backdrop
Barrens darter

Examples

Just Right

A North American river otter laying on it's back
North American river otter

Examples

Too Many

A wild hog with dark hair looks towards the photographer
Wild hogs at Merrit Island National Wildlife Refuge

Examples

Conclusion

The people who make up the Service's Southeast Region draw great strength and promise from a broad, partner-driven approach to conservation. From the Caribbean north to the Appalachians, west to the Ozarks, and then south to the bottomland hardwoods of the Lower Mississippi Valley and the Gulf Coast, we have the charge to work with our partners to conserve some of the world's richest and most diverse fish and wildlife habitat.

Knitted together by some of the nation’s most beautiful rivers, we know our "all hands" approach to conservation is the only way to meet the challenges and opportunities the 21st century is presenting us with.

We know the time for action is now. The conservation opportunities in front of us are great. And our creativity, innovative spirit and emphasis on partnership are what we need to make forward progress over the next three years with 2060 on the horizon.

"Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline." - Jim Collins, bestselling author