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Habitat Restoration

The mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is, by working with others, to conserve, protect, and enhance fish and wildlife and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The Service's Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program helps accomplish this mission by offering technical and financial assistance to private (non-federal) landowners to voluntarily restore wetlands and other fish and wildlife habitats on their land.

Nationally, the program was initiated in 1987 to help protect, enhance and restore wildlife habitat. The program is designed for use on privately owned (non-federal) lands, providing landowners with technical and financial assistance to restore fish and wildlife habitats. Partnerships are the keystone of the program. The list of partners is varied, but in general they include other federal agencies, state and local governments, educational institutions, businesses, conservation organizations and private landowners. Generally speaking, anyone can become a partner providing the work will be done on non-federal lands, and eligibility requirements of the program are met.

The fish and wildlife resources in the Lake Champlain basin of Vermont and New York and eastern Vermont's Connecticut River drainage occupy a mosaic of interconnected aquatic and terrestrial habitats. The mineral-rich bedrock and soils of this region support natural communities high in plant and animal diversity. Emergent marshes, bogs and fens, floodplain forests, maple-ash swamps, hardwood-cedar swamps and pine-oak-heath sandplain forests are some of the important natural communities found in the area.

Waterfowl, shorebirds and songbirds use wetlands, woodlands, and riparian areas throughout the region as breeding habitats and for critical stopovers during spring and fall migrations along the Atlantic Flyway. Waterfowl conservation is a focus at Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge and the Nulhegan Basin Unit of the Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge in Vermont.

Restoration of fish populations, including landlocked Atlantic salmon is a focus for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its cooperators in the Lake Champlain Basin. In the Connecticut River, Atlantic salmon restoration is a multi-state initiative spearheaded by the Connecticut River Atlantic Salmon Commission.

In order to provide benefits to Federal trust resources the Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program has emphasized the following initiatives: