Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program

Video courtesy of Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program

Are you familiar with the Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program? It’s a great opportunity providing technical and financial support for private landowners interested in habitat restoration. Check it out!

The Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program is a voluntary habitat restoration program administered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). It provides financial and technical assistance to private landowners, tribes, and other conservation partners, including land trusts, who want to restore and protect wetland, riparian, and other wildlife habitat areas on their private lands. The program helps private landowners conserve the Nation’s biological diversity and habitat integrity by reducing habitat fragmentation, increasing habitat for various plant and animal species, and supporting threatened communities.

The primary goal of the Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program is for each restoration project to reflect the needs of the landowner and fish and wildlife. The primary focus of program restoration efforts is on ecosystems or watersheds where restoration will achieve the greatest benefit. Priority is given to projects on private lands that: (1) satisfy the needs of wildlife populations on National Wildlife Refuge system lands or contribute to resolution of problems on refuges; and (2) improve habitat for migratory bird species of management concern; significantly depleted inter jurisdictional fish species; endangered, threatened, or candidate species; species proposed for listing; and/or other imperiled species.

Other important considerations include whether the project would:

• Help reduce habitat fragmentation
• Restore habitat and ecological integrity on lands protected by non-Federal conservation easements held by land trusts or other non-Federal entities
• Result in a self-sustaining ecosystem
• Benefit important spawning and rearing habitats for anadromous (migratory) species of fish
• Serve as buffers for other important state or federal conservation lands
• Conserve or restore habitats recognized as imperiled (e.g., under state natural heritage
  programs)

For more information on what is available in your area, you can use the contact information for your regional and state coordinators provided on the Partners for Fish and Wildlife website. Or, feel free to reach out to me at hallie@westernlandowners.org with any questions.