The Interior Department?s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today that almost $9 million in grants will go to 60 Native American conservation projects in 18 states.
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne called the Tribal Landowner Incentive and Tribal Wildlife Grant programs ?an important part of the Department?s effort to support tribal sovereignty, culture and fish and wildlife resource management programs.?
The Tribal Landowner Incentive Program will fund 24 projects, at a cost of a little more than $2.5 million, and the Tribal Wildlife Grant program will fund 36 proposals at a cost of more than $6.3 million.
The Tribal Landowner Incentive Program grants provide for the protection, restoration and management of habitat to benefit species at risk, including Federally-listed endangered or threatened species, as well as proposed or candidate species.
The Tribal Wildlife Grant program provides funding to defray the cost of implementation of programs that benefit fish and wildlife and their habitat, including species that are not hunted or fished.
The grants made to Federally-recognized Indian tribes were made possible under the Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2002 and a program created within the State Wildlife Grant program, also in 2002.
Copies of the 2006 period report on the Tribal Wildlife Grant and Tribal Landowner Incentive program is available by emailing pat_durham@fws.gov.
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 547 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small wetlands and other special management areas. It also operates 69 national fish hatcheries, 64 fishery resource 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.
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For more information about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
visit our home page at http://www.fws.gov
