Evaluation of the National Wildlife Refuge System

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Role: Senior Evaluator

Time Frame: 2006-2008

Deliverable: Management Systems International. 2008. An Independent Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Wildlife Refuge System.

Background

The National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS) contains 96 million acres of many of the nation’s most important conservation landscapes and is characterized by its proponents as “the most biologically diverse lands in America.” The system contains representative landscapes of virtually all of the country’s natural ecosystems and is critical to the health and survival of many migratory birds, endangered species, fish and resident wildlife. In addition, the Refuge System annually hosts over 34 million visitors, who engage in hunting, fishing and wildlife viewing, which makes the Refuge System one of the country’s premier assets for supporting wildlife-dependent recreation. The system also serves as an important educational resource, as it annually provides over 800,000 environmental education opportunities to school children.

Evaluation

This evaluation was conducted between October 2006 and September 2007 and used a multimethod and multi-source data collection methodology. The evaluation team conducted more than 250 FWS and partner interviews, visited all eight regional offices and at least two refuges in each region, administered an on-line survey of 312 refuge managers, surveyed partners and state fish and wildlife agencies, and reviewed existing data and documents. 

The report presented an overview of the performance of each of the 12 Strategic Outcome Goals (SOGs) the refuge program had established in its budget justification to the Office of Management and Budget. This report then presented a set of specific recommendations for improving the effectiveness of the Refuge System for each SOG. A sample of recommendations included:

  • Increase monitoring and inventory work

  • Develop a water strategy

  • Increased funding for Law Enforcement

  • Need for policy and program consistency across regions and between refuges

  • Reduce administrative and reporting requirements

 An Overview documents provided a summary of the complete evaluation and included an overall performance rating, conclusions and recommendations for each of the Refuge System’s 12 SOGs. A complete set of evaluation findings was provided in the full report along with response data from three surveys (refuge managers, state fish and game agencies, and Friends Groups/partners), a list of all persons interviewed (approximately 250), references, and a bibliography.

 Report available on request.