FWS Director, Steve Williams highlighted more than $1.2 million in grants announced today to private landowners, conservation organizations and Native American tribes in California and Nevada to undertake conservation projects to benefit endangered, threatened, and at-risk species and other wildlife.
The grants, announced today by Interior Secretary Gale Norton, will help conserve the habitat of a wide range of species. The announcement came shortly after President Bush signed an executive order instructing federal agencies to work with states, tribes, local communities, conservation groups, private landowners and other partners in cooperative conservation projects.
"President Bush believes the most effective action we can take to conserve wildlife and its habitat is to empower the people who live and work on the land," said Steve Thompson, Manager of the Service's California/Nevada Operations Office. "His executive order will ensure federal agencies make building partnerships in states and communities across the country our highest priority."
President Bush's executive order instructs federal departments and agencies such as the Interior Department to ensure that they carry out their statutory obligations in a "manner that promotes cooperative conservation, with an emphasis on appropriate inclusion of local participation in federal decision making."
Norton announced the grants through three programs begun by President Bush ? the Private Stewardship Grant program, the Tribal Landowner Incentive Program, and the Tribal Wildlife Grant Program.
"With todays executive order, President Bush has made working in voluntary partnership with states, local communities, tribes, private landowners and others the gold standard for our conservation efforts," Norton said. "The grants we are announcing today meet that standard by empowering tribes and private citizens to do what the federal government cannot do alone ? conserve habitat for imperiled species on private and tribal lands."
Overall, $16 million in grants are being awarded in 42 states. A state-by-state list is available at .www.doi.gov">.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is awarding $58,351 in two separate grants in California and $15,579 for a Nevada grant under the Private Stewardship Grant program begun by President Bush last year. This program provides federal grants on a competitive basis to individuals and groups engaged in voluntary conservation efforts on private lands that benefit federally listed endangered or threatened species, candidate species or other at-risk species. Grant recipients must provide at least 10 percent of the total project cost either in non-federal dollars or in-kind contributions.
The California Private Stewardship Grants are:
Habitat Protection Project Along the Eastern Edge of Furnace Creek Wash Adjacent to Death Valley National Park (application by Bat Conservation International) - Inyo County, California - ($20,000) - This grant will enable Bat Conservation International to gate three abandoned mines to preserve habitats for 16 species of bats, including Townsend's big eared bats, in the Death Valley area.
Dooley Creek Restoration Project - (application by Bioengineering Institute) - Mendocino County, California - ($38,351) This grant will restore riparian riparian
Definition of riparian habitat or riparian areas.
Learn more about riparian and instream habitat and stabilize banks along a 2,734-foot stretch of Dooley Creek. Salmonid habitat will be enhanced by structures that increase native riparian vegetative cover and pool habitat and reduce sediment from eroding banks.
The Nevada Private Stewardship Grant:
Desert Dace, Basalt Cinquefoil, Springsnail Habitat Improvement Project - (application by a private individual) - Humboldt County, Nevada - ($15,579) - This project is a partnership between the private landowner, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Fish and Wildlife Service and will exclude livestock from the entire federally designated Critical Habitat for desert dace. The landowner will develop an alternate solar powered water source and allow for the construction of approximately 10 miles of fence, which will encompass and exclude livestock and wild horse and burro grazing from the sensitive species? habitats.
The Service is awarding $228,605 for two grant projects in California and $287,500 for two grant projects in Nevada under the Tribal Landowner Incentive Program (TLIP), also begun by President Bush last year. The grants were chosen through a competitive process to address protection, restoration and management of habitat to benefit at-risk species, including federally listed endangered or threatened species and proposed or candidate species. The maximum award under this program is $150,000 with a required minimum 25-percent match from non-federal funds.
The California TLIP grants are:
Hoopa Valley Tribe - ($149,925) Improve Habitat Protection During Timber Sale Layout and Implementation This grant will advance the Tribes capacity to protect habitat elements critical to Threatened and Endganered, Sensitive, and cultural wildlife and plants and improve the Tribes ability to make informed forest management decisions over the long term and will establish a comprehensive habitat improvement plan for addressing wildlife corridor wildlife corridor
To maintain healthy species populations and ecosystems, fish and wildlife need the freedom to move and migrate. As habitats and migration routes are affected by climate change and fragmented by roads, fences, energy development and other man-made barriers, wildlife struggle to reach necessary areas to feed, breed and find shelter. A wildlife corridor is a piece of undeveloped land connecting two habitats so wildlife can move safely between them.
Learn more about wildlife corridor needs.
Los Coyotes Band Of Cahuilla Indians - ($78,680) Los Coyotes Revegetation and Land Restoration Project This grant will enable the tribe to restore and revegetate tribal land damaged by recent wildfire, beetle infestation and abuse incurred by misuse of the land by Off-Highway Vehicles from visitors using the tribal campgrounds.
The Nevada TLIP grants are:
Washoe Tribe Of Nevada & California - ($142,000) Lahontan Cutthroat Trout Habitat Assessment and Restoration Project This grant will enable the tribe to protect and restore habitat for the benefit of Lahontan Cutthroat Trout within the Clear Creek Watershed, a tributary to the Carson River. This project will restore 1000 feet of streambank for Lahontan Cutthroat Trout.
Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe - ($145,500) Truckee River Barrier Removal and Riparian Restoration Project This grant will provide funding for the removal of fish passage fish passage
Fish passage is the ability of fish or other aquatic species to move freely throughout their life to find food, reproduce, and complete their natural migration cycles. Millions of barriers to fish passage across the country are fragmenting habitat and leading to species declines. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Fish Passage Program is working to reconnect watersheds to benefit both wildlife and people.
Learn more about fish passage barriers and help restore selected reaches within the Truckee River for the benefit of Cui-ui and Lahontan Cutthroat Trout.
Nationwide the Service is awarding $3 million in grants under the Tribal Landowner Incentive Program to federally-recognized Indian tribes to help fund 25 projects. Contributions from tribes and other partners raise the total value of these projects to $4.4 million.
The Service is also awarding $450,467 for two grants in California and $249,583 for a grant in Nevada under the Tribal Wildlife Grants (TWG) program. These grants are awarded to federally-recognized Indian tribes to benefit fish, wildlife and their habitat including non-game species. Although matching funds are not required for these grants, they are considered to be an indicator of a tribe's commitment.
The California TWG grants are:
Agua Caliente Tribe - ($200,956) Research Studies Project on Riparian Birds and Amphibians, Endangered Peninsular Bighorn Sheep and Tribally Important Bat Species. This grant will enable the Tribe to develop monitoring protocols for riparian species found within the Mountains and Canyons Conservation Area as identified within the Agua Caliente Tribe's Tribal Habitat Conservation Plan.
Robinson Rancheria Of Pomo Indians - ($249,511) Clear Lake Hitch Study and Recovery Project. This grant will establish a three part study and recovery program for the benefit of the Clear Lake Hitch, a culturally significant species endemic to Clear Lake. The Robinson Rancheria Tribe will work in partnership with the Lake County Public Works Dept.
The Nevada TWG grant:
Shoshone-Paiute Tribes - ($249,583) Survey, Monitor and Management Project of Sage-Grouse Populations and Habitat on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation. This grant will develop a complete inventory and assessment of sage-grouse populations and their breeding, nesting, brooding and winter habitat for improving tribal capacity to be more responsive to reservation management needs and cultivate partnerships with outside communities around this species.
Nationwide, the Service is awarding $6 million for 28 conservation grants to Native American tribes under the Tribal Wildlife Grants program.
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 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 Aid program that distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to State fish and wildlife agencies.
