National Audubon Society
Conservation Programs

A Summary for OVAS Members

The National Audubon Society's "Adgenda 2002" is contained in 7 areas:

1. Conserving America's Birds

• Stop the USDA program to poison and kill Red-winged Blackbirds in favor of benign crop protection.
• Mobilize citizen scientists to help track WatchList bird species through innovative media including the Internet.
• Expand Audubon's successful Important Bird Areas program by identifying and establishing new IBA's across the nation
• Complete the Great River Birding Trail map of birding spots along all 1,366 miles of the upper Mississippi River

2. Educating the Public on Conservation

• Work to find funding for new Audubon Centers.
• Build a record participation in the 2002 Great Backyard Bird Count.
• Continue to bring hundreds of thousands of adults and children into our network of Audubon Nature Centers.
• Furnish our Audubon Adventures curriculum to classrooms across America.
• Distribute "Audubon's Guide to a Healthy Yard and Beyond" to help millions of Americans become better stewards of bird and wildlife habitat in their communities and their own yards and gardens.

3. Preserving Wildlife Refuges

• Mobilize the public to press for increased funding of the Refuge System on the occasion of its centennial in 2003.
• Train volunteer Audubon Refuge Keepers and Audubon members to help protect refuges from invasive species that threaten to displace native wildlife.
• Stop activities incompatible with conservation goals that threaten the integrity of America's most endangered wildlife refuges.

4. Promoting Grassroots Action

• Continue to augment the Audubon roster of grassroots activists and further increase circulation of the Audubon Advisory legislative update.
• Monitor anti-wildlife interests to ensure that they don't exploit political and national security issues in ways that destroy wildlife and habitat.
• Expand the use of the Internet, e-mail, and training to mobilize activists and coordinate the development and delivery of grassroots messages to policy makers.

5. Restoring the Everglades and Other Wetlands

• Monitor the effectiveness and efficiency and fight for increased funding of the historic Everglades recovery program to restore this unique and magnificent home to many imperiled species including the Wood Stork and the highly endangered Florida Panther.
• Collect citizen-supplied information on threats to local isolated wetlands.
• Ensure that the Corps of Engineers will formally address environmental concerns in its plans and rules involving wetlands and other areas.
• Continue to work toward the goal of restoring one million acres of wetlands throughout America.

6. Conserving Ocean Life

• Help develop the framework for a federal oceans wilderness policy to protect marine ecosytems and biodiversity.
• Conserve a significant area for nesting of seabirds, shorebirds, and sea turtles at Lea Island, North Carolina.
• Press for controls of invasive species that threaten to disrupt native marine life.
• Push for reforms to longline fishing practices that pose lethal threats to sea turtles and sea birds.

7. Protecting Endangered,Threatened and Imperiled Wildlife

• Continue to defend the Endangered Species Act from attempts to limit and weaken this crucial law.
• Work to save the endangered Cook Inlet Beluga whale.
• Fight to protect the Bald Eagle Ridge, Pennsylvania habitat to many species of neo-tropical birds.
• Press to fully fund the Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program under the 2002 Farm Bill.

Page Created 1/1/02