Florida Gulf Coastal Program
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The mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Coastal Program
is to conserve healthy coastal ecosystems for the benefit of fish,
wildlife and people. It accomplishes this through cooperative
partnerships that identify, restore and protect habitat in priority
coastal areas.
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The Florida Gulf Coastal Program is one of 15
Coastal Programs throughout the United States. This
proactive program is federally funded; Congress appropriates
money for the program annually.
The Panama City Field Office uses federal funds to restore
terrestrial and aquatic habitats, to protect and improve
existing resources, and to preserve land through conservation
easements. A conservation
easement [PDF] is land that has been donated or set
aside by a landowner to remain undeveloped.
The Program covers all watersheds to the Northeast
Gulf of Mexico, nine of which are coastal counties.
The two main objectives are:
To increase the amount of restored or protected coastal
habitats in Northwest Florida each year.
To maximize each dollar and hour spent by the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service through matched contributions among
diverse partners.
These objectives are accomplished mainly through grant
agreement partnerships with federal, state and local governments,
conservation organizations and private landowners. For every
dollar the USFWS spends, it aims to leverage double the
amount, either in money or in-kind donations, from its partners.
The success of the Coastal Program is due largely to the
amount of money and volunteer hours donated to program projects.
Coastal Barrier Resources Act
Congress passed the
Coastal
Barrier Resources Act (CBRA) in 1982 to address problems
caused by coastal barrier development. CBRA restricted Federal
expenditures and financial assistance, including Federal flood
insurance, in the Coastal Barrier Resource System, a defined
list of undeveloped coastal barriers mapped along the Atlantic
and Gulf of Mexico coasts.
An additional responsibility addressed under the program
involves making geographic determinations for the Federal
Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) National Flood Insurance
Program regarding whether coastal parcels of private
property are within units of the National Coastal Barrier
Resource System, as delineated on maps produced by the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service.
Review Florida Gulf Coastal
Program agreements managed
by the Panama City Field Office.
View
reports generated by the Florida Gulf Coastal Program.
Learn more about Florida’s
Gulf Coast.
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