Just revealed in a news release by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, a record number of more than 53 million people visited American’s national wildlife refuges during fiscal year 2017 (2017-2018). A new report, entitled Banking on Nature, emphasizes that refuge visitors’ spending generated $3.2 billion of sales in local economies, and as this spending flowed through the economy, more than 41,000 people were employed and $1.1 billion in employment income was generated. The report contains economic case studies of 162 national wildlife refuges and other information.
The report also states that the combined economic contribution to communities nationwide is more than 6 times the $483.9 million appropriated by Congress to the Refuge System in fiscal year 2017. The figures come from the new economic report by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, formally titled Banking on Nature 2017: The Economic Contributions of National Wildlife Refuge Recreational Visitation to Local Communities. The report is the sixth in a series of studies since 1997 that measured the economic contributions that visitors to national wildlife refuges make to local economies.
The National Wildlife Refuge System is an unparalleled network of 567 national wildlife refuges and 38 wetland management districts located in all 50 states and five US territories. There is a national wildlife refuge within an hour’s drive of most major metropolitan areas, and national wildlife refuges provide vital habitats for thousands of species and access to world-class recreation, including birding, photography, and environmental education.
For more details, see https://www.fws.gov/news/ShowNews.cfm?ref=visitor-spending-at-national-wildlife-refuges-boosts-local-economies-by-&_ID=36432 and to see a full listing of each refuge’s economic impact, read the Banking on Nature report and explore the visual data https://www.fws.gov/economics/divisionpublications/bon2017viz.asp.
