We will work with nonfederal partners to measure progress before 2003. The Service will use these results to better shape its efforts to increase public understanding, reach diverse ethnic and minority groups, and more carefully target efforts to improve public access to its facilities and programs. Service actions to deliver this long-term goal focus on increasing refuge and fish hatchery educational programs, with Regions emphasizing specific target groups, such as school aged children or local fish and wildlife group members. Also, the Service will develop and improve public use facilities, such as developing learning centers, increasing access to otherwise remote areas, and providing new and better wildlife dependent recreational opportunities in refuges and fish hatcheries. Public interest in participating in Service programs and visiting Service facilities continues to exceed staff capacity and is expected to continue to do so.
Volunteers provide essential services to augment staff efforts.
By interacting with Service resource professionals and working in Service programs, volunteers learn more about the natural world and pass on what they learn to visitors. Efforts are made to find the right number of volunteers to perform the high quality volunteer work the Service needs to meet its overall mission goals. To extend these efforts, the Service will implement cooperative agreements with private groups and academic institutions to make information about volunteering and its benefits more readily available to individual citizens and guests. Opportunities for members of the public who wish to take active roles in the conservation of fish and wildlife through support of Service programs and activities such as the refuge friends groups will be provided. Messages will be delivered through exemplary use of educational practices and technology, including interpretive signs, brochures, and programs designed to promote public understanding and participation in an ecosystem approach to conservation.