|
South Florida's National Parks and Preserve to receive $6 million in Centennial Challenge Initiative and Private Grants
The National Park Service (NPS) announced on Thursday, April 24, 2008 that south Florida's National Parks and Preserve will receive $6 million in additional funding for four projects in 2008. Half of this will support a significant restoration project in Everglades National Park and the rest will provide the parks and preserve the ability to increase environmental education programs, recruit and train volunteers to become citizen scientists, and to support resource protection and restoration efforts in all four park areas.
Big Cypress National Preserve, Biscayne, Dry Tortugas and Everglades National Parks have all been selected to receive federal matching funds for their proposed 2008 Centennial Challenge projects. The federal funds will match $3 million in private donations already identified from local partners and the National Park Foundation. This additional funding is part of the NPS Centennial Challenge Initiative, a 10-year program to reinvigorate and highlight the importance of America's National Parks as they prepare to celebrate their 100th Anniversary in 2016. The initiative includes a focus on increased funding for park operations plus a President's Challenge: up to $100 million/yr in federal funds to match $100 million/yr in philanthropic donations to the NPS.
Biscayne's environmental education proposal was part of the 4-park collaboratively developed proposal to teach local children how the ecosystems of the four south Florida National Parks are interrelated and the importance of their role in becoming good stewards of the resources preserved within these park areas. The additional funding will allow the park units to hire additional seasonal and temporary park rangers and fund transportation and supplies for a program that serves as many as 25,000 school children annually. The partners for this program are the South Florida National Parks Trust and Toyota USA Foundation who are the primary funders. Friends of Big Cypress and the Everglades Association are also sponsors of this project.
Two additional projects at Biscayne National have been approved for matching funds. One project, sponsored by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Tropical Audubon, will provide training for local youth to assist scientists in obtaining baseline monitoring information of coastal birds. A second project, funded by the South Florida National Parks Trust and the Hoover Foundation, will enlist the help of the University of Miami students and volunteers from Cordis Corporation to grow corals as part of a state-of-the-art coral nursery program for future reintroduction onto the reef tract.
For further details on Biscayne's projects, click on the links below. For a complete list of approved 2008 NPS Centennial Challenge projects and programs, please visit www.nps.gov/2016.
| 
