Carl Schwartz Oral History Transcript (Partners for Fish and Wildlife)

Carl explains how the Partners program began with the 1985 passage of the Food Security Act (Farm Bill) and the need to protect wetlands and floodplains based on President Carter’s Executive Orders. He describes how he, at the time the sole biologist working on the Farm Bill program in New York, identified easements and fee title transfers for management by the National Wildlife Refuge System. He also describes other components of the Farm Bill, including Swampbuster and the Conservation Reserve Program, which are still active today. Carl also describes how New York was one of 9 states in a pilot Wetlands Reserve Program, which was authorized in a later Farm Bill. Carl describes how the program came to be known as the Partners for Fish and Wildlife, that it had authorizing legislation passed by Congress. Carl also describes how the Farm Bill program grew in New York, both in staff and in responsibilities, and how the Fish and Wildlife Service began restoring wetlands in support of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan in New York State. He describes the expansion of the habitat restoration on private lands to include nesting cover for waterfowl, early successional habitat restoration, riparian riparian
Definition of riparian habitat or riparian areas.

Learn more about riparian restoration, stream restoration, dam removal and endangered species habitat restoration. Lastly, he discusses how support for the program was high by farmers and other private landowners but sometimes faced its greatest detractors within the Fish and Wildlife Service itself.