Landscapes

As a nation and as people, Americans have always thought big. And thinking big on conservation—conservation at a landscape scale—is no exception. Americans understand the need to protect and maintain our large landscapes and rural heritage and that watersheds, wildlife, and ecosystems do not recognize property lines. Protecting large landscapes requires working across public, private, and tribal lands, and the federal government is uniquely positioned to play a valuable role in aligning strategies, inspiring collaboration, and leveraging resources to protect America’s large landscapes.

The Penobscot River Restoration Project tells a tremendously compelling story: of a broad and diverse public-private partnership restoring the ability of endangered Atlantic salmon and struggling populations of 10 other native sea-run species to return to their spawning ground for the first time in over 150 years without compromising hydropower production; of restoring a Tribal Nation's connection to their heritage; of an ecosystem-wide approach to reconnecting the Gulf of Maine to upriver habitat for the benefit of people and nature; and of the power of AGO in raising the visibility of the project and commitment to it by the Administration and, in so doing, bringing it to the cusp of completion.

Since 2004, federal, state, and tribal agencies, corporate interests, and non-governmental partners have worked to secure approximately $62 million in public and private funds for main-stem restoration (including dam decommissioning) to benefit federal trust species, tribal culture, and commercially significant Gulf of Maine fisheries, to spur community and economic development, and to create significant construction and engineering jobs in New England's second largest watershed. It is both a DOI 50 State and Rivers Initiative project; it is also a focus of the AGO interagency landscape working group, encompassing both main stem restoration as well as significant USDA/NRCS investment in tributary restoration.

Earlier this summer, we celebrated the beginning of Great Works dam removal, another step on a long-term path to restore 1,000 miles of fish habitat along the Penobscot and its tributaries.

The grasslands of the Great Plains are enormously important for wildlife, water resources, agriculture and our economy.  The grasslands of the Prairie Pothole Region, for example, have long been recognized as the "duck factory" of North America, producing 50% of the continent's waterfowl on an average year and up to 70%  when water and grass are abundant.  However, with high crop prices and new technologies, grasslands and isolated wetlands are being converted to other uses at an alarming rate.  Nearly 250 million acres of tallgrass prairie and an estimated 80% of shortgrass prairie have been lost through conversion. Nearly 300,000 acres—2.2% of the remaining native prairie—were converted to cropland between 2002 and 2005 alone, and the rate of conversion is increasing each year. This threat is bigger than any one federal agency and demands a landscape-scale approach.

To restore and protect Great Plains grasslands and wetlands for waterfowl and the ranching communities that depend on them, AGO is helping to coordinate several conservation actions, including DOI's targeting investment of some $30M  of the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund and USDA's One Million Acre initiative targeting CRP enrollments. Individually, the two initiatives will bring tens of millions of new conservation dollars to the conservation of imperiled grasslands. Together, the two initiatives will target conservation investments cohesively with FWS, NRCS, and FSA working locally to target funding. For both, partnerships with landowners, conservation groups, state agencies and other stakeholders will be critical to maximize the return on investment and stem the tide of grassland conversion.