The Interior Department is expanding the tools in the conservation "toolbox" available to private land owners and federal land managers to enhance and achieve conservation. These tools include grant programs that emphasizes local input and cooperative decision making in accomplishing natural resource goals.

Nearly $2.4 billion in grants went to States, private landowners, hunting and fishing groups, and other conservation groups to preserve open space, restore habitat and conserve species from 2001 through 2006. Since 2001, 16 million acres of habitat have been restored, protected, or enhanced using matching funds to establish or enhance habitat benefiting waterfowl and many other wildlife species. In FY 2007, the Department's budget proposes $322.3 million in cooperative conservation programs.

In addition to grants, 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

Through cooperative conservation, we can achieve healthy lands, thriving communities and dynamic economies.

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. The project corrected a substantial threat to cold-water fisheries habitat in a manner that allows natural processes and maintains habitat values.

Funding

DOI Cooperative Conservation Grants

Interior's Bureau Grants Programs:
Fish and Wildlife Service
National Park Service
Office of Surface Mining
U.S. Geological Survey
Bureau of Land Management

All Federal Grants Programs:
The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance provides access to all Federal programs available to State and local governments (including the District of Columbia); federally-recognized Indian tribal governments; Territories (and possessions) of the United States; domestic, public, quasi-public, and private profit and nonprofit organizations and institutions; specialized groups; and individuals.

Grants.Gov allows organizations to electronically find and apply for Federal grants. Grants.gov is the single access point for over 1000 grant programs offered by all Federal grant-making agencies.

Technical Assistance
Technical Assistance Quick Reference

The goal of the Cooperative Conservation Initiative is to empower federal land managers to form partnerships within local communities to better care for the land and its wildlife. By promoting these partnerships, we not only leverage federal conservation dollars with private funds but also tap into the ingenuity and local knowledge of the people who live and work on the land.