Sally Jewell, the nation's new interior secretary, used the Minnesota River as a backdrop Tuesday to explain the Obama administration's ambitious conservation strategy and argue that protected wildlife refuges make an important contribution to the economy as well as the environment.
During a stop on her first tour as a Cabinet secretary, Jewell said the federal network of 561 National Wildlife Refuges contributes $2.4 billion to the nation's economy — and $80 million to Minnesota's — while supporting more than 35,000 jobs in recreation and related industries.
She should know — Jewell is a former CEO of REI, a national chain of outdoor clothing and gear stores.
"What's the value of conservation?" she said at news conference at the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Bloomington, where in hiking pants and boots she looked every inch the fit mountain climber she is. "One way we can put a price tag on it is economic activity," she said.
Minnesota was the first stop on a national trip designed to highlight her priorities, announced in her first major speech last week in Washington D.C. She laid out a long-term conservation strategy designed to balance economic development of oil and gas and other resources with protection of natural resources, saying her agency will ensure that both are pursued during a period of climate change, tight budgets and increasing demands on land and water.
"There are some places in this country that are too special to develop," she said.
As secretary of the interior, she is in charge of one-fifth of the country's land, which includes national parks, wildlife refuges and other federally owned property.
It's increasingly important, she said, to manage conservation and wilderness protection on a landscape-size level. Now, the country is losing 24 acres per day in the prairies and wetlands of the upper midwest, primarily to agriculture.