Frequently Asked Questions

How will the waterfowl management community achieve the goals of the NAWMP revision?

The North American Waterfowl Management Plan has always been and will continue to be a high-level, strategic plan. The implementation details will unfold after the plan is released. As in 1986, how far we move towards full implementation -- and how fast we implement -- will depend upon our collective will. Attached to the Revision document will be an “Action Plan” that sets forth details of “who does what by when.” In the two years after the new Plan is released, much will need to be accomplished. We will need to:

  • Establish quantifiable objectives for population and habitat conservation, harvest opportunity, and user participation… with acknowledged tradeoffs among them
  • Implement a general integrated framework for making linked harvest, habitat, and user management decisions
  • Implement monitoring and evaluation programs to track progress toward objectives and reduce uncertainties about key functional linkages among goals

What is the timeline for the North American Waterfowl Management Plan Revision?

The writing team will have a first draft available for review by the Revision Steering Committee (RSC) in mid-May 2011. After incorporating revisions from the RSC, the document will be reviewed by the NAWMP Planning Committee (PC). The release of a first public draft will occur by early July 2011. An open comment period on this draft will continue through mid-September, after which the RSC will consider the input received and work with the writing team to finalize the document. Following a second cycle of review by the RSC and PC during winter of 2011, the NAWMP Revision will finalized and released by mid-March 2012. This timeline is subject to change as circumstances dictate.

Who is on the North American Waterfowl Management Plan Revision writing team?

The North American Waterfowl Management Plan Plan Committee appointed the following individuals to serve on the writing team:

Jim Ringelman, Chair, Ducks Unlimited
Mike Anderson, DU Canada
Bob Clark, Canadian Wildlife Service
John Eadie, UC Davis
Mark Koneff, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Andy Raedeke, Missouri Department of Conservation
Greg Soulliere, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

What came out of the 2008 Future of Waterfowl Management Workshop?

Participants at the Future of Waterfowl Management Workshop offered several observations, including:

  • Resources dedicated to conservation are not optimally allocated; in particular, too much time is spent setting annual regulations and we need better monitoring and evaluation of our programs.
  • Federal/state/provincial activities to conserve waterfowl and habitats have declined.
  • Too few resources are directed towards understanding waterfowl hunters.
  • Federal agencies are becoming less attentive to waterfowl science & monitoring/ evaluation.

 

Further, the participants observed that we have achieved relatively little success in:

  • Developing complementary and coherent goals for harvest and habitat management
  • Understanding and incorporating hunter expectations and satisfaction
  • Simplifying waterfowl regulations
  • Setting and revising population objectives using a clear process
  • Rallying support of non-hunters

This led to the following proposed actions:

  • A group or venue be created to continue the work of the Human Dimensions Working Group.
  • The NAWMP revision process should be used to develop more coherent goals, particularly for waterfowl harvest and habitat management.

What were the findings of the Joint Task Group?

In their final report, the Joint Task Group (JTG) recommended that a “yield curve approach” be used to link harvest and habitat goals (including the North American Waterfowl Management Plan). The JTG also recommended that the waterfowl management community:

  • Focus more science on reducing key uncertainties
  • Create a human dimensions working group that would assess stakeholder values and develop an approach for explicitly incorporating human dimensions information into management decisions

Lastly, the JTG recommended convening a waterfowl management policy summit, later to be called the “Future of Waterfowl Management Workshop,” which was held in 2008.

What were the main findings of the 2007 North American Waterfowl Management Plan Continental Assessment?

The Assessment concluded that we needed to:

The Assessment also recommended that a “Joint Task Group” be created to examine how best to accomplish better integration of waterfowl management goals and objectives.

  • Do better at tracking accomplishments and landscape change
  • Have a clear and robust accountability framework
  • Review and revise population and habitat objectives as needed
  • Increase attention to agriculture & water policy
  • Improve monitoring and assessment, and revitalize the NSST for the Joint Ventures
  • Create more linkages among the elements of the waterfowl management system
  • Integrate harvest, habitat and stakeholders into waterfowl management planning and decision-making.

What other information, besides input from the consultations, will be considered as the North American Waterfowl Management Plan is revised?

The content of the Revision will be informed by many sources of information besides the consultation workshops, including the 2007 NAWMP Continental Assessment, the work of the Joint Task Group, the 2008 Future of Waterfowl Management Workshop, ongoing work of the NAWMP Science Support Team and the Harvest Management working group, and input from the flyways, joint ventures, and other organizations.

What happens after the consultation workshops are completed?

Discussion and table leader notes from the workshops, polling data, and other workshop results will be summarized and evaluated. The North American Waterfowl Management Plan Revision Steering Committee will meet in mid-March 2011 to discuss this input and identify the key issues and specific content of the Revision. Shortly thereafter, the writing team will begin its work.

Where can I find results from consultation workshops?

You can view raw results from each of the Round 1 and Round 2 workshops under the Revision Process Archive tab. These results include the PowerPoint presentations, breakout group discussion notes, and more.

How can I provide input if I was unable to attend a consultation workshop?

The next opportunity for input will be during the review of the draft revision document. The draft document will be available in early July 2011 and the review period will last about two months. Watch the web site for information on specific dates and processes for commenting on the draft.

What results came out of the Round 1 consultations and how are they being used?

Round 1 consultations included six workshops – four in the U.S. and two in Canada – as well as input submitted at this website, and from flyways, Ducks Unlimited, Delta Waterfowl, and Mexico. Results from each of the workshops are posted on the Web site under the Updates tab. In general, results of the Round 1 consultation process included clarification of the problem or challenges prompting the Revision, including loss of habitat and hunters, and waning interest among the public and even agencies in waterfowl management. Input from the workshops also helped to clarify the purpose of the revised North American Waterfowl Management Plan: “The purpose of the Plan is to sustain North America’s waterfowl populations and their habitats at levels that satisfy human desires and perpetuate waterfowl hunting. Plan goals will be accomplished through partnerships guided by sound science.” In addition, creation of objective hierarchies helped show the interrelationhsips among elements of the waterfowl management system. Finally, the Round 1 consultations identified four fundamental objectives for waterfowl management:

  • To maintain healthy waterfowl populations in North America
  • To conserve landscapes capable of sustaining waterfowl populations
  • To perpetuate waterfowl hunting
  • To sustain opportunities for the public to view and enjoy waterfowl and waterfowl landscapes

Who was invited to participate in Round 1 and 2 consultation workshops?

Members of the waterfowl management community were invited to participate in both consultations. Entities include the NAWMP Science Support Team (NSST); the Harvest Management working group; the North American Wetlands Conservation Council and staff; federal, state and provincial governments; joint ventures, Flyway Councils and technical committees, non-governmental organizations including Ducks Unlimited, Delta Waterfowl, and others; and participants in the 2008 Future of Waterfowl Management Workshop.

What are the fundamental objectives/goals of the revised North American Waterfowl Management Plan and how were they identified?

The currently proposed four fundamental objectives/goals are:

  • To maintain healthy waterfowl populations in North America
  • To conserve landscapes capable of sustaining waterfowl populations
  • To perpetuate waterfowl hunting
  • To sustain opportunities for the public to view and enjoy waterfowl and waterfowl landscapes

The first three fundamental objectives/goals were identified as the most important by participants in Round 1 consultation workshops through a polling process, through input by users to the web site, and from other entities such as Flyway Councils. During the Round 1 consultation workshops and input process, many people made suggestions for an objective that would address a broader societal benefit of waterfowl and wetlands. The Revision Steering Committee drafted the fourth objective to capture that need.

So what, exactly, will be included in the revised North American Waterfowl Management Plan?

As currently proposed, within the Revision itself, we want to:

  • Achieve broad consensus on goals and objectives of waterfowl conservation
  • Articulate, at a conceptual level, the desired future state of waterfowl management as an integrated enterprise
  • Develop momentum needed to establish and fully implement a conceptual framework that allows managers to balance tradeoffs among objectives
  • Identify key functional linkages among objectives and commit to testing these through adaptive management or directed research

What are the critical elements that will be included in the revised North American Waterfowl Management Plan?

The currently proposed elements include, but are not limited to,

  1. A set of widely supported goals and objectives
  2. A working conceptual framework that allows managers to balance tradeoffs among goals and objectives
  3. Goals and objectives that are linked and coherent across scales
  4. Managers using linked decision frameworks to efficiently allocate resources to achieve those goals and objectives
  5. Institutional and cultural support to enable such integrated management actions

    To be successful will require:
    • Hard thinking about means objectives and system drivers
    • Dealing with current uncertainties (e.g., causal relationships)
    • Obtaining new information in the long term to address key uncertainties
    • A willingness to adapt and change as new information comes to light
    • A high degree of explicitness and transparency
    • Time and support to work through these issues

What do we want to accomplish with the revised North American Waterfowl Management Plan?

The Plan Committee has proposed that in the revised North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP), we want to:

  • Highlight the challenges of change and the imperative of adaptating to this change to be successful
  • Underscore that waterfowl management must be relevant, effective, efficient and adaptable
  • Strengthen consensus on the future direction for waterfowl management

This will require an approach that integrats considerations of habitat, populations, and human desires in decision-making and resource allocation, and a better focus on efficiently achieving renewed NAWMP goals.

What is the stated purpose of the new North American Waterfowl Management Plan?

At this time in the Revision process, the proposed purpose of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan (Plan) is “to sustain North America’s waterfowl populations and their habitats at levels that satisfy human desires and perpetuate waterfowl hunting. Plan goals will be accomplished through partnerships guided by sound science.”

Why are we revising the North American Waterfowl Management Plan?

The original NAWMP was written 25 years ago, and it has served the waterfowl community well. However, much has changed since then. We are confronted by new conservation challenges, and the pace of change has accelerated. The processes and institutions used to manage waterfowl have not kept pace, and they are not coordinated in a way that ensures efficiency by working toward common goals. Although the waterfowl management community is in general agreement on the fundamental goals of waterfowl management, it has not reached consensus on the means to achieve those goals, nor the framework necessary for integrating multiple decisions in a way that efficiently allocates resources and coordinates actions.