Interior Secretary Gale Norton announced that private landowners and conservation entities in 39 states are receiving more than $7 million to undertake conservation projects on their land for endangered, threatened and other at-risk species thanks to the Administration's innovative cost-share Private Stewardship Grants program. Texas received nearly $700,000 for seven grants.
Administered by the Department's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, each of the 97 grants awarded today require at least a 10 percent match in non-federal dollars or in-kind contributions.
"This is the second round of grants awarded under the PSG program and judging from the successful results coming in from conservation projects funded in the first round last year, we can report that the President's idea of providing financial support to local citizen conservationists is an unqualified success," Secretary Norton said. "The most effective conservation projects are those conceived and carried-out by the people who live and work on the land."
The Private Stewardship Grants 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. Under this program, private landowners as well as groups working with private landowners are able to submit proposals directly to the Service for funding to support these efforts. President Bush has requested funding of $10 million for this program in 2005. In 2003, 113 grants totaling more than $9.4 million were awarded to private individuals and groups in 43 states.
"Private Stewardship grants encourage private landowners in their voluntary efforts to implement tailor made conservation strategies for listed, proposed, candidate, or other at-risk species found on their land," said Service Director Steve Williams.
The Texas grants are:
Cook's Branch Limited will receive a grant of $110,000 for Red-cockaded Woodpecker habitat improvements in Montgomery County. It is estimated that Cook's Branch Limited property has one of the highest red-cockaded woodpecker densities for any contiguous block of privately owned land in Texas. Habitat improvements are aimed at controlling the forest" woody understory and midstory. This work will further strengthen the red-cockaded woodpecker foothold in East Texas and, hopefully, contribute to its ultimate recovery.
Another grant to benefit Red-cockaded Woodpeckers was awarded to Temple-Inland Forest Products Corporation. The company received $97,224 to create a permanent 1,200-acre red-cockaded woodpecker habitat area at North Boggy Slough Wildlife Management Area adjacent to the Davey Crocket National Forest in Trinity and Houston Counties, Texas. There are currently two Red-cockaded woodpecker family groups (both breeding pairs) located there. Temple-Inland Forest will restore 248 acres of longleaf pine, create ten additional red-cockaded woodpecker recruitment stands, conduct chemical understory and midstory broadleaf species control on 660 acres, and undertake control burns " all to increase the existing red-cockaded woodpecker population.
The Peregrine Fund Northern received $165,700 to continue their Aplomado Falcon Restoration program in Presidio, Aransas, and Willacy Counties. The Northern Aplomado falcon is the only falcon species on the Endangered Species List. This conservation effort will expand The Peregrine Fund and Fish and Wildlife Service's efforts to re-establish viable wild populations of the species in their historic habitat through the release of young captive-bred Aplomado falcons. The number of young Aplomado falcons released in West Texas will increase to approximately 45 to50, the number of release sites will increase to four, and the number of acres enrolled in the conservation program will increase to approximately 250,000 acres in West Texas.
Audubon Texas, with the help of a $62,000 grant, will trap cowbirds in several counties to facilitate the recovery of the endangered Black-capped vireo in central Texas. Cowbirds routinely place their eggs in the nests of Black-capped vireos who then often end up raising the cowbird young at the expense of their own. Cowbird trapping is a proven strategy for reducing nest parasitism and enhancing nesting success of black-capped vireos.
Black-capped vireos will get a helping hand from the Texas Wildlife Association Foundation. They received a grant of $120,000 to expand efforts begun several years ago. At that time, various State and Federal grants funded Black-capped vireo habitat restoration projects in the Guadalupe and Leon River Basins in central Texas. Today's award will be used to restore key blocks of Black-capped vireo habitat, improve and increase water quality, incorporate long-term management practices to maintain water and wildlife improvements in the project area and to provide measurable results of both increased water yields and wildlife populations.
The Environmental Defense Fund received a grant $87,300 to restore and enhance a variety of thornscrub habitats on private lands in South Texas to maximize the endangered ocelot's chances for recovery. The work will also benefit a variety of rare or at-risk songbirds, raptors, bats, reptiles, amphibians and plants by increasing the quantity and quality of available habitat.
Selected fences in Beaver and Ellis Counties, Oklahoma and Lipscomb County, Texas will be voluntarily marked and removed to reduce collisions and mortality of lesser prairie-chickens, an "at-risk" species in the High Plains portion of the Southwest Region. Sutton Avian Research received a grant of $53,800 to do the work.
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. The 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."
"With today's 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 private citizens to do what the federal government cannot do alone " conserve habitat for imperiled species on private and tribal lands."
For a complete list of Private Partnership Stewardship grant awards, please visit: http://endangered.fws.gov/grants/private_stewardship.html. CFDA number is 15.632.
