1. Effective Conservation Fish and Wildlife Service roles in
Sikes Act planning and delivery
This is a quick introduction to the roles that FWS plays in planning and delivery of the Sikes Act.
Just providing some broader context for the much better presentations that follow mine.
The SA gives us a set of tools that allow us to partner with installations in COMPREHENSIVE military lands conservation …
Regulatory functions can be important and they have their place, BUT
We consider the full suite of natural resources on an installation AND seek COOPERATIVE approaches.
The Sikes Act gives us the flexibility to bring the breadth of the Service’s f&w expertise to bear.
I’ll talk a bit about those programs that are most relevant to the Service’s SA efforts and a few of the major roles we play.
MARCH 29, | NMFWA

2. OUR KEY PROGRAMS ECOLOGICAL SERVICES FISHERIES REFUGES
FWS is a small agency with many programmatic silos: 9 major Directorates just for resource mgt. (plus HR, IT, training, & business ops)
Three programs are currently key for FWS in implementing Sikes Act:
Fisheries official name is currently FAC. Wait a couple years, it’ll change again.
Over past decade, most Service growth in SA capacity has occurred in Fisheries.
Has the lead for SA within the Washington Office (a.k.a. “headquarters”).
We provide guidance and policy for the regions and field.
We work with national-level partners on new initiatives and partnerships.
AF liaison is a WO employee
In SW and Rocky Mtn. / Prairie regions, Fisheries has the lead for SA implementation.
Other regions use Fisheries field offices for on-the-ground work with installations.
Fisheries and SA are good fit: voluntary partnerships and non-regulatory approaches
ES:
Yes, ES is the regulator and has responsibility for ESA.
But also strong cooperative conservation programs run through ES offices.
Among the 9 major resource programs, they along with NWR tend to have great influence internally.
Many offices, often with large numbers of staff.
Refuges:
May seem surprising.
But NWR houses key activities that have been on the growing edge:
Wildland fire
Law Enforcement
Both most relevant to the AF partnership, but increasing interest from other mil services.
ECOLOGICAL
SERVICES
FISHERIES
REFUGES

3. This is our obligatory map of the regions.
Each region has a regional office and a Regional Sikes Act Coordinator.
All employees in a region are subordinate to the Regional Director, thus we tend to refer to FWS as “decentralized”.
Over-simplification because national programs based in DC can to some degree influence program direction through policy development and funding allocations.
But it is fair to say that power resides largely among regional leadership.
Nonetheless, each region administers the various resource programs (FWS, ES, NWR, etc.).
But b/c variations in priorities across regionals, a program (such as ES) can look slightly different from one region to the next.
E.g., R8 ES heavy regulatory focus on T&E vs. R4 has reg. role, but also heavy partnership capacities.

4. INRMP Review Ecological Services role Streamlined review process
The Sikes Act provides the Service with a role in reviewing INRMPs.
For a couple of reasons, including the regulatory nature of the process and sheer number of their offices, ES has the lead.
Also, in early 2000’s, legislation allowed for use of INRMPs in CH decisions.
Seemed like a good idea at the time, but now INRMP is linked with an ESA process and therefore … ES office review more relevant.
From late ‘90’s through today, delays in INRMP processing have been a concern.
Conventional wisdom among mil community was that FWS was to blame …
Closer look showed shared culpability.
Worked with DOD to develop streamlined review process.
Still, for half the mil services, about 1 in 5 INRMPs is out of compliance, so opportunity to continue tweaking processes.
Good news? When added AF Liaison, AF compliance on INRMPs shot up to ~95%. Great model.

5. Conservation Planning FWCOs and ES offices can
support INRMP development
SA says that INRMP development should be a collaborative affair.
In practice, that may have been the case for the initial INRMP, but less so for subsequent.
FWS has been inconsistent across offices in it’s ability to engage: money, time, and human capital.
Also, MOST INRMPs are, on the whole, pretty good.
But where we can and do engage, we certainly bring value to the process:
Obvious impact is that we can integrate our most up-to-date conservation priorities,
But also, information clearing house: comprehensive plans, broader contexts, landscape-scale strategies.
FWCOs are the storefronts of Fisheries. About 65 nationwide.
FWCOs: Typically help in context of helping to develop discrete components of plans, often in context of broader reimbursable agreement.
ES offices engage in a similar manner. More typically focused on supporting planning for T&E species, including plants.
B&GE or waterfowl: MB may get engaged
Refuge boundaries, overlays, wildland fire, or Refuges LE: then NWRS engages

6. Conservation Delivery FWCOs and ES offices Technical assistance
Reimbursable agreements
Growing demand
Conservation delivery: Where much of SA envisions FWS collaborating with installations.
Both Fisheries and ES are most common programs that installations work with, BUT also MB and Refuges.
Engagement has varied across US, with R2, 4 and 6 leading way.
Challenge is that no dedicated FWS funding to work on installations:
In fact, Fisheries uses some limited funding from it’s base funding to support partnerships.
BUT, demand for FWS expertise has been high and SA encourages reimbursable partnerships.
SO, growth area for us.
INRMPs cover a broader swath of natural resource areas, including cultural and archaeological.
FWS focuses on fish and wildlife management and, in particular, O-T-G conservation work.
However, military conservation portfolio is diverse, includes: some forestry, LE, fire mgt. … … along with what you would expect.
I won’t list, b/c hear more on this from speakers.

7. Coordination Regional SA Coordinators Air Force Liaison Army Liaison
A common question we get at NMFWA from our military partners is “How do we tap into this network?”
A great place for any installation to start is by reaching out to the Regional Sikes Act Coordinator.
These Coordinators can:
Connect you with ARDs for a particular program or the field supervisors of those offices that you are most likely to work with
They can point you towards the right office to deal with INRMP reviews
They can serve as an initial point of contact to help you tap into broader FWS or DOI initiatives, AND
Can help you in efforts to collaborate with the Service in general.
We also have a FWS liaison to the Air Force, who has been highly successful in meeting our common needs, and we plan to have a liaison to the Army in place soon.
The contact info for the regional SA coordinators and the national liaisons is on our Sikes Act web page.
Not only that, but we have half of the Service’s SA Coordinators presenting today and all of our national liaisons.

8. The Sikes Act is the fundamental linchpin for the success of the Department of Defense’s Natural Resources Conservation Program.
− John Conger
This is a quote from the 2014 Sikes Act reauthorization hearings in Congress. John Conger was the Acting Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Installations and Environment).
His testimony is worth reading if you can find it on-line b/c it is very moving.
John Conger also talked about how Sikes Act is about partnerships, supporting the warfighter, and quality of life.

9. Thanks for listening. We look forward to working with you to support
effective conservation on military lands.
The presentations we have today will give you a great cross-section of FWS Sikes Act activities.
We really are here to help and we look forward to working with you.
Thanks for listening.