FWS Adopts Planning Policies for the National Wildlife Refuge System

On April 18, 2024, FWS adopted final revised planning policies for the National Wildlife Refuge System. (89 Fed. Reg. 27689, Apr. 18, 2024). These policy revisions were designed to update the Refuge System's refuge management by incorporating landscape conservation plans and consideration of climate change and other anthropogenic forces in refuge management. As revised, these planning policies provide that FWS “will consider historical, current, and plausible future ecological conditions of [National Wildlife Refuges] based on climate change and other anthropogenic changes in determining desired future conditions, including determining whether to resist, accept, or direct large-scale ecological transformations in [FWS’s] planning goals, objectives, and strategies.”