It took a long time but US Fish & Wildlife got it right

They have finally got something right, the Federal Government that is. In my book, the US Fish & Wildlife Service scored a home run with the recent release of the proposed Final Comprehensive Conservation Plan & Environmental Impact State for Lake Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge. Their plan actually took local input from local groups and organizations into consideration and acted on them when compiling their recommendations. Bravo for the staff at the refuge and their superiors for acting this way.
In past instances, such as the White Mountain National Forests’ efforts to create a CCP & EIS, local input was not a primary issue or even consideration. The theory of one person, one vote played into their evaluation of the public comments and inputs into their planning process on what the national forest should do over the next 15 years. Major lettering writing campaigns and lobbying efforts by environmental groups produced thousands upon thousands of “solicited” comments. Many of these were in the form of generic cards or emails.
But the staff at the Umbagog Lake National Wildlife Refuge went out of their way and met with local user groups, individuals and neighboring communities to see what everyone looked for when envisioning the future for the refuge.
The process of planning for the next 15 years at the refuge started back in 2001, and it involved state agencies from both Maine and New Hampshire. The three proposals that this group worked out were as varied as one would expect. Plan A called for leaving the refuge as is and operating it as is. Plan B, which was the plan the planning group proposed, set goals for expanding the refuge by 47,000 acres as well as managing the refuge for specific wildlife species and timber and building a new visitor/educational center. Plan C, proposed letting the refuge revert back to old growth and not manage it for any particular species. The most important part of C’s proposal was to expand the refuge another 76,000 acres. Through the public input process, planners said, they received more letters and correspondences supporting Alter-native C, but through working with specific user groups, the planning committee and members ended up choosing Plan B with modifications.
It was understandable that the furbearer management proposal was put on the back burner to be worked on at a later date.
The planning committee went the extra mile in this process when they gave more credence to the local organizations, committees and user groups input than they did with those thousands of form letters from several of the national environmental group’s members. We hope that future planning processes do the same!