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| Issues of Interest |
| Conservation
Grants |
| Aldo Leopold, the visionary 20th century
conservationist, eloquently imagined a Nation of citizen stewards.
Environmental progress ultimately resides in the efforts of
all of us to apply a caring hand to the landscape. It resides
in our actions in our own backyards, at our places of work,
on our farms and ranches, and in our communities.
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| To foster a Nation of citizen stewards,
Secretary Norton is advancing a 4 C's philosophy-conservation
through cooperation, communication, and consultation. The Department
is expanding the tools in the conservation "toolbox" available
to private land owners and federal land mangers to enhance and
achieve conservation. These tools include over $500 million
in conservation grants, including $113 million proposed in FY
04 for the Cooperative Conservation Initiative (CCI), which
includes funds for our highly successful Partners for Fish and
Wildlife Program, our Coastal Program, and cooperative conservation
challenge cost-share grants. Our Private Stewardship Grant program
and Landowner Incentive Program, founded on initiatives envisioned
by President Bush when he was Governor of Texas, provide assistance
to private land owners in their voluntary efforts to protect
threatened, imperiled and endangered species.
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| These efforts are producing real results
across the country. In summer 2003, the Department awarded $12.9
million in cooperative conservation challenge cost-share grants
to land managers in Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife
Service, and the National Park Service. The grants will fund
256 projects-ranging from invasive species eradication to water
supply for big game elk to habitat restoration-in 40 states
involving 749 partners, leveraging $24 million in partnered
dollars.
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| Examples of cooperative conservation
at work:
 Dozens
of farmers initiated a project to reclaim 100 miles of streams
and riparian areas along Buffalo Creek in Pennsylvania. These
farmers engage in conservation as willing partners and participants,
not as coerced parties responding to Washington mandates.
Maine's Ducktrap River is being restored by over two-dozen
federal, state, local and private partners.
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| We are also expanding the use of cooperative
conservation tools such as conservation banking, stewardship
contracting, enhanced use of Safe Harbor agreements under the
Endangered Species Act, and use of consensus-based management
for public lands.
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| Through cooperative conservation,
we can achieve healthy lands, thriving communities and dynamic
economies.
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| Click
here for a state-by-state summary of cooperative, conservation,
initiative projects and funding. |
| News Releases for Cooperative Conservation
Initiative: |
| 09/16/2003 |
Secretary
Norton Announces $12.9 Million in Grants to Support Conservation
in 40 States and Puerto Rico |
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