This week on Open Spaces, we have a special guest blogger: our new Director, Dan Ashe.  You can meet Dan on his new Director's Corner Page. 

After more than a year of planning and anticipation, Conserving the Future: National Wildlife Refuges and the Next Generation is here.  

When I got here yesterday, I was greeted with dark clouds and claps of thunder. Some might think this was an inauspicious beginning, but I thought it was perfect, an exciting start to our history-making event.

A lot has changed since the last time we did this.  In 1999, Fulfulling the Promise became the National Wildlife Refuge System’s guiding vision.

Today, we face more – and more complex – conservation challenges. There’s the U.S. population – more urban, older and  more diverse -- that has grown by 58 million in the past 20 years. There are increasing threats to fish, wildlife and habitats and the added challenge of a changing climate. Add to these the rapid changes in communication fostered by the web and social media.

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Today, there are 553 refuges across the country, with at least one in every state, providing safety to more than 250 threatened or endangered plants and animals.  Have you ever wondered how we got there?

President Roosevelt, known for his love of nature and wildlife established Pelican Island as our first national refuge in 1903.  Though he didn’t know it at the time, Roosevelt had set the nation on the path to building the largest national Refuge System in the world. 

Throughout his presidency, refuges were established around the country, and by the time he left office in 1909, he had declared 53 refuges in 17 states and three territories.

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