Environment, education, economy all connected
By Dr. Jeff Koenings, WDFW Director

Backyard wildlife sanctuary managers are among those likely to understand intuitively the connection between the environment, education, and the economy.

You are directly involved in caring for the environment, particularly that part of it that you control on your own property, with wildlife habitat landscaping, use of native plants, water conservation, and other efforts.

You’ve learned much about the natural world from your involvement and probably have had a hand in educating others, directly or indirectly, perhaps by sheer example.

And through your participation you may be inclined to realize that a healthy environment is the foundation of a healthy economy. Business thrives where people have clean air and water, open space, robust flora and fauna, and fully-functioning, sustainable ecosystems in general.

Governor Chris Gregoire recognizes this interconnectedness, too, which is why she, along with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, champions “E-3,” a strategy to educate the environmental decision makers of the future.

E-3 (Environment, Education, Economy) was launched last year by the Environmental Education Association of Washington, with the governor co-chairing the effort with Billy Frank Jr., Chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, and William Ruckleshaus, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and currently chair of Washington’s Salmon Recovery Funding Board.

As a board member and past president of the Pacific Education Institute (PEI), I addressed Association members at a statewide E-3 summit to encourage their efforts to develop a comprehensive state environmental education plan. I believe such a plan is critical because currently environmental education tends to be piecemeal, by special individual interests for everything from air quality to wildlife habitat.

For example, WDFW’s own “Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy” needs to be linked to other statewide initiatives, like the governor’s Puget Sound Partnership, Biodiversity Council and Ocean Caucus.

The E-3 approach is akin to our own move from single species management to broader ecosystem or landscape management. I believe this kind of approach will result in state and local action not just on behalf of our wildlife and plant species, but on behalf of our children’s future and the future of Washington’s environment.

Our young people need first-hand and hands-on experiences that lead them to learn to ask critical questions, to explore a variety of values and options, to dig deep into issues, to get their hands dirty in real world applications. The E-3 approach can challenge young people to understand the complexity of issues, to make informed decisions, and to take action to solve problems.

WDFW Environmental Education Manager Margaret Tudor, who is also PEI co-executive director, is one of five state agency steering committee members leading an E-3 State Agency Roundtable (including the Departments of Ecology, Natural Resources and Health and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction). They are developing a state plan to assess the roles and realities of state agencies in delivering E-3 messages and documenting state agency needs and recommendations. Margaret is leading preparations for the launch of that E-3 plan in May with the governor’s staff.

Margaret and our other WDFW outreach and education staff have developed some powerful on-going projects in school districts across Washington.

For example, Project Bluebird in Tumwater, Fort Lewis and the Whidbey Island school districts, involves students in efforts to recover blue bird populations. Project CAT, (Cougars And Teaching), is in its seventh year in the Cle Elum School District, where students measure changes in their environment and study human population growth in and around their community and how that impacts cougars. In the Warden School District, children work with our biologists to protect at-risk burrowing owls on their playing fields.

These and other projects change lives. Teachers and their students make communities stand up and take notice to what is happening in their changing landscape. I think they leave students with a clearer idea of both the individual and societal obligation to make intelligent decisions and take appropriate actions to protect the “green” in our Evergreen State.

A series of E-3 regional summits, or gatherings of diverse interests in environment, education, and economy, has been under way since the statewide launch to nurture networking, coordinate efforts, and identify ways to advance the concept. Some WDFW staff members have been involved, and some of you may have participated in these meetings already.

Later this year the Association plans to deliver a statewide plan that defines phased actions, resources and commitments needed at state and local levels to achieve “environmental literacy” in Washington.

An environmentally literate person is defined as one who has knowledge of the interrelatedness in natural systems, someone with an attitude of care or stewardship of natural resources, someone able to act in ways that are sustainable or can be maintained without adverse long-term effects.

I think that sounds like many of you in our Backyard Wildlife Sanctuary program. I congratulate you on your “environmental literacy,” thank you for your efforts for wildlife and for showing others what can be done, and encourage you to learn more about the E-3 movement in Washington at www.e3washington.org.