Program accreditation has been debated for many years by fisheries and
wildlife professionals as a way of improving educational quality, con
ferring professional recognition, facilitating employment decisions re
garding hiring and promotion, and providing numerous other possible be
nefits. We discuss the potential benefits and disadvantages of program
accreditation and give examples of current accreditation or similar s
ystems for professional evaluation and recognition. We believe the pot
ential benefits of an accreditation program would not be sufficient to
counteract its many significant disadvantages, and such a program wou
ld be redundant with the current certification programs of the America
n Fisheries Society (AFS) and The Wildlife Society (TWS) and other pro
gram review methods. Because of the difficulty of reaching agreement w
ithin the fisheries and wildlife professions and the resistance of col
leges and universities to accept new accreditation programs, we believ
e there is little likelihood of accreditation of fisheries or wildlife
programs being implemented in the foreseeable future.