Mission: The mission of the national wildlife association is to conserve americas wildlife heritage for future generations through strategic programs that protect and enhance the national wildlife refuge system and the landscapes beyond its boundaries. By combining policy, landscape-scale conservation efforts, grassroots development and public education, the refuge association works to strengthen the ecological integrity of our national wildlife refuges, maintaining the diversity of american wildlife and plants for the future.
Programs: Conservation programs - the refuge association supports landscape-scale conservation initiatives that secure the ecological well-being of national wildlife refuges and their surrounding natural systems. The association convenes public and private partner agencies, nonprofits and community members, identifies key challenges and opportunities in ecosystem conservation and helps set common goals, and then works with partners to build community support and secure funding from a variety of sources to accomplish wildlife conservation goals on the ground.
conservation policy and education - the refuge association mobilizes hundreds of local and national partners to address urgent conservation needs, including funding for the refuge system, loss of vital habitat and natural systems that sustain wildlife refuges, invasive species and damaging changes in land use. The organization chairs a coalition of national environmental, scientific and sporting groups with a combined membership of more that 15 million people, with the objective of raising awareness of the needs and accomplishments of our national wildlife refuges.
conservation constituency-building - the refuge association plays a leadership role in bringing a spectrum of interests together to support conservation action, and specifically the success of the national wildlife refuge system. The refuge association trains, educates mentors and organizes refuge friends groups across the country, engages private landowners, ranchers and sportsmen, and reaches out to university students who rally around their endangered school mascot animals to raise awareness about the need for wildlife conservation. Together, these constituent groups form a diverse chorus of voices, which the refuge association brings together to take action in support of wildlife conservation needs.
The National Wildlife Refuge Association (NWRA) is an innovative and energetic organization whose mission statement says it all: "To conserve America’s wildlife heritage for future generations through strategic programs that protect and enhance the National Wildlife Refuge System and the landscapes beyond its boundaries." I volunteer for this nonprofit organization through my work as the founding president of a Friends of a National Wildlife Refuge 501(c)(3) group. NWRA offers unlimited support to all nonprofit Friends of National Wildlife Refuges by helping these groups connect across the country in order to share ideas and skills. Each of the Friends of Refuges groups which NWRA lends its support to are then more able to offer their support to local Wildlife Refuges. My love of nature photography, especially being able to photograph migrating birds such as Tundra Swans and Aleutian Cackling Geese first brought me to National Wildlife Refuges. NWRA has given me the opportunity to join their mission of making sure my favorite wildlife will always be there for generations to come.