Statement of Mollie H. Beattie, Nominated to be Director, Fish and Wildlife Service, (28 July 1993) Washington, D.C.

Speech Text

[1] It is an honor to be nominated by President Clinton for this position and to have that nomination considered by this committee. I have met with many of you over the past few weeks and found myself in the presence of people with a strong commitment to the conservation of our natural world. If I am confirmed, we will work together on many issues over several years, and I know we will do so on the common ground of that commitment.

[2] I also discovered among those Senators with whom I was able to meet a deep respect for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and here too is common ground. I wish that all those citizens who subscribe to the disparaging myths about public employees could meet the people who make up the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. As many of you have remarked, there is no more competent, energetic, creative, or passionate group of workers in any sector, public or private. If confirmed, I hope I can be worthy of their dedication.

[3] I realize that I represent some contrasts with previous Directors of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I am a forester, a northeasterner, a nonhunter, and a woman. I would like to talk briefly to you about each of these and how they might help me lead the Service during this time of great changes in its focus, its goals, and its composition.

[4] I am a forester by training, but the forestry I learned is that of Aldo Leopold and other great conservationists who come from that field. It is about forest ecosystems, not timber; I was trained to deal with the forest as a whole, to think all at once about “everything that the forest produces and everything that is seen and heard there”.

[5] As the Chairman mentioned, the month that I finished my studies at the University of Vermont I was hired to write the wildlife sections of an environmental impact statement. Six months after that, I was employed by the University of Vermont to administer a research and demonstration project about wildlife habitat management. This was evidence, I think, of the breadth of that school’s forestry program.

[6] If confirmed, I would work to make the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service a national and international advocate for ecosystem thinking, an outlook crucial to conservation of our fish and wildlife, and perhaps even to human survival. Many of the current conflicts about loss and endangerment of our fish and wildlife are the results of failures to see ecosystems as wholes: to understand, for instance, that poor land use at a river’s headwaters results in loss of a fish run at its mouth; that the loss of one species of fish means the loss of those species that depend on it; that the loss of enough species will mean the loss of our own.

[7] Last week, Senators Baucus and Chafee released the results of a national poll demonstrating that the public does not understand these concepts or the urgency of their acceptance. If confirmed, it would be my goal to improve that awareness. Without it, I do not believe that we can save fish and wildlife species no matter how much we try to improve the Federal laws meant to protect them.

[8] I would ask the Service to deliver this broad message about the conservation of fish and wildlife: that the choice between people and animals is not a real one because nature binds us to a common fate. We must have jobs and development that maintain all species, including our own. The public must be given the faith that this is possible, given some new ways of thinking and doing business.

[9] Second, I am a New Englander, but I have long familiarity with other regions of the country where the Service has a presence. I know the southwestern desert, where my grandparents maintained a home for 30 years. I know the California coast, where my mother lived for a decade, and Idaho, where she has now resided for almost two decades. I know the Rockies, where I worked as an Outward Bound instructor.

[10] Contrary to the Northeast’s urbanized image, the place I have lived for the last decade is a house Rick and I built ourselves a mile from the last power pole, a half mile from our only neighbors, and in the winter, a half hour from our tiny village. So I know about rural economies and ways of life. And much of my knowledge of wildlife is from its constant companionship: the moose in the driveway; the geese on the pond; the wild turkeys at our birdfeeder; and this spring, a now-famous bear in my apiary.

[11] Despite some marked contrasts, Vermont and other regions of the country do share many common conditions and controversies regarding fish, wildlife, and public lands.

[12] As Senator Leahy stated, no State has a fiercer tradition of local control and private ownership than Vermont. Our conservation efforts of course involve regulation and public land acquisition, which are essential, but their cornerstone has long been cooperation with private landowners. In the 1990’s it is clear throughout the Nation that partnerships with private landowners are necessary to the conservation of the Nation’s flora and fauna. There must be effective incentives and programs for these owners in order to encourage their long-term stewardship. I have designed and administered many such initiatives over the last two decades and I look forward to helping the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service develop its private lands programs into models of conservation for the 21st century. I would like to note that this effort would include the Service’s work with endangered species. I would look for every opportunity to work with private landowners to prevent the listing of species long before they are threatened.

[13] For 14 years in the 18th century, Vermont was an independent republic. The decision to join the Union in 1791 is still occasionally debated. As Deputy Secretary of Natural Resources for Vermont, I oversaw the Department of Fish and Wildlife and know well that management of fish and wildlife is a particularly controversial aspect of State’s rights issues. As a Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who has worked in State government, I would work hard for a productive partnership between the States and the Federal Government.

[14] It may be surprising to know that Vermont, famous for its greenness, has its share of water problems. As your colleagues Senators Jeffords and Leahy will confirm, central and divisive environmental battles in recent years have been over water appropriation, quality, and flow in Vermont’s rivers and streams. I have been deeply involved in many of these, from writing State standards for the management of riparian areas to involvement in disputes over allocations, to the review of State water quality permits. If confirmed, I will come to the Service with a good understanding of the difficult water-related problems the Service is facing, particularly in the West.

[15] From Vermont I would also bring a deep concern for our Nation’s fisheries. They are downstream and downhill from pollution and poor land use everywhere, and as such are an important gauge of our general success in environmental protection.

[16] In my capacity as manager of State-owned natural resource lands in Vermont, I learned a great deal about public land planning, acquisition, exchanges, and management. I instituted public involvement in the planning for State-owned lands and designed a standardized and straightforward framework for public land plans, a goal of Senator Graham’s bill concerning the National Wildlife Refuges. From my experience as a public land manager in a rural and natural resources-dependent State, I am conversant in the major issues for the Services western—and especially Alaskan—wildlife refuges, and I am especially familiar with issues relative to the impacts of public land on economic development, which I know are of great interest to many of you.

[17] Third, I am not a hunter, and have not fished since I lost my fishing companion, my grandfather. But I have lived for more than half my life in Vermont, a State—as Senator Leahy noted—where the hunting and fishing tradition runs very, very deep. Our friends and neighbors hunt on our land, most of them for the recreation, some of them for the food. I understand hunting well and am grateful to anglers and hunters for their long and effective conservation efforts. I share with hunters the appreciation of wildlife that comes from watching it closely for a long time.

[18] As one of the estimated 76 million Americans who spend their time and money in pursuit of wildlife, but do not hunt, I would try hard as Director to make more of them into active advocates and financial supporters of fish and wildlife conservation.

[19] Finally, a word about diversity. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is already committed to improving the diversity of its workforce and is dealing with what can be a difficult and painful process of change. With my long and personal experience with these issues and a successful professional history with this kind of effort, I believe I can help the Service through to its goal of being a cohesive organization with a richness of gender, color, age and outlook.

[20] I know that we cannot achieve this long-term change in the diversity of the Service without also increasing the diversity of people who are involved with fish and wildlife. For example, the children in inner city schools will hold the earth in their hands in a few years. If they do not get a chance to learn and marvel about that earth and its creatures, the Service cannot succeed in its goals for workforce diversity—or, for that matter, in any other aspect of its mission.

[21] As Director I would work to return through the Service the gift I have received from a lifetime spent in the natural world. I would ask that the Service take as its ultimate mission to make available for all Americans, living and future, rural and urban, that profound and personal amazement at the natural system that supports us all.

[22] Senators, I thank you again for the honor of your consideration.