Contacts
Steve Kufrin, 612-713-5447
Scott Flaherty, 612-713-5309
Interior Secretary Gale Norton today announced $33,500 in challenge
cost-share grants to support two cooperative conservation projects in Indiana
to support demonstration wetlands projects and restore endangered butterfly
habitat at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.
The grant is part of $21 million in challenge cost-share grants
under President Bush’s Cooperative Conservation Initiative to complete
377 conservation projects nationwide in conjunction with states, local communities,
businesses, landowners and other partners. The projects involve more than
1,100 partners in 43 states and will conserve, restore or enhance more than
565,000 acres. Overall funding for the projects totals more than $52 million
including the matching contributions of partners.
“ The goal of the Cooperative Conservation Initiative
is to empower federal land managers to form partnerships within local communities
to better care for the land and its wildlife,” Norton said. “By
promoting these partnerships, we not only leverage federal conservation dollars
with private funds but also tap into the ingenuity and local knowledge of
the people who live and work on the land.”
A state-by-state breakout of the grants announced by Norton today is available
on the Interior Department Web site, http://www.doi.gov.
Partners will also contribute $33,500 in matching contributions
to the two Indiana projects, bringing the total for the state to $67,000.
For example, the National Park Service is awarding a grant
of $15,000 to restore an endangered Karner blue butterfly habitat at the
Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. The Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation
District is also contributing $15,000 to the project.
President Bush proposed the challenge cost-share grants in
2003 as a tool for federal land managers to use in creating cooperative conservation
projects. Last year, the department awarded $12.9 million in grants in 40
states and Puerto Rico. For Fiscal Year 2004, the President proposed and
Congress appropriated an increase of more than $8 million, or 62 percent,
in the program.
Overall, the department has awarded nearly $34 million in grants over the past
two years to help more than 1,500 partners complete 633 projects. These projects
have conserved, restored or enhanced more than 700,000 acres of wildlife habitat.
The Cooperative Conservation Initiative challenge cost-share
grants are part of an overall commitment by the Bush administration to support
cooperative conservation efforts. Over the past three years, the Interior
Department has provided more than $1.3 billion in grants to states, tribes,
local governments and private landowners.
The projects supported by these grants have restored millions
of acres of habitat, removed invasive exotic species, replanted native grasses,
improved riparian habitat along thousands of miles of streams, conserved
limited water resources and developed conservation plans for endangered species
and their habitat.
The President is proposing to build on this success in his
Fiscal Year 2005 budget, which includes more than $507 million to support
Interior’s cooperative conservation programs.
“ The power of partnership produces results for conservation
that far exceed the dollars we put into these partnerships,” Norton
said. “By empowering citizens, we are tapping into the greatest conservation
resource we have – the American people themselves – and helping
them to become citizen-conservationists.”
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal Federal
agency responsible for conserving, protecting and enhancing fish, wildlife
and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American
people. The Service manages the 95-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge
System, which encompasses 544 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small
wetlands and other special management areas. It also operates 69 national
fish hatcheries, 63 Fish and Wildlife Management offices and 81 ecological
services field stations. The agency enforces federal wildlife laws, administers
the Endangered Species Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores
nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat
such as wetlands, and helps foreign governments with their conservation efforts.
It also oversees the Federal Assistance program, which distributes hundreds
of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to
state fish and wildlife agencies.
-FWS-
| 
