Norton Announces Grant To Help Protect Piping Plovers
U.S. Newswire
28 May 16:06
Norton Announces Grant to Help Five Long Island Towns,
The Nature Conservancy Protect Piping Plovers on Long Island
To: National Desk Contact: Hugh Vickery of the U.S. Department of the
Interior, 202-501-4633
SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y., May 28 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Under a new
program proposed by President Bush when he was still governor of Texas,
Secretary of the Interior Gale A. Norton today announced an $82,500 grant to
The Nature Conservancy's Long Island Chapter and the eastern Long Island
towns of East Hampton, Riverhead, Shelter Island, Southampton and Southold
to protect piping plover nesting areas on private lands within these
communities.
The grant to the group, known as "F.E.E.T. (Five East End
Towns) on the Ground," is one of 113 grants totaling more than $9.4
million awarded by the Interior Department's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
to individuals and groups nationwide under President's Bush's new Private
Stewardship Grant Program. The grants will be used to undertake conservation
projects on private lands in 43 states for endangered, threatened and other
at-risk species.
"This is exactly the kind of project that President Bush had
in mind when he proposed the creation of the Private Stewardship Grant
Program when he was still governor of Texas in June, 2000," Norton said. "It
is the kind of partnership between the federal government and the American
people that is the heart of a new environmentalism for the 21st century."
"By making these grants, we are empowering citizens to
restore habitat on their land and take other steps to protect and
recover endangered, threatened and at-risk species," she said.
The Nature Conservancy and town representatives will use the
funds to monitor and protect 55 beach-nesting bird sites and rare
coastal plant communities throughout the five communities. Specific
management activities will include fencing historic piping plover nesting
areas, restricting predators such as fox, gulls and crows from these areas,
monitoring off-road vehicle activity to prevent disturbance to the nests,
and increasing public awareness about these species.
"Long Island supports the second largest breeding population
of piping plovers on the Atlantic Coast," said Dr. Rick O. Bennett, the
Service's Acting Northeast Regional Director. "This partnership among the
Service, The Nature Conservancy, and town governments will assist in
protecting important habitat on private beaches for the threatened piping
plover, as well as other species that depend on these environmentally
fragile areas."
The Private Stewardship Grants Program provides federal
grants on a competitive basis to individuals and groups engaged in
voluntary conservation efforts on private lands that benefit federally
listed endangered or threatened species, candidate species or other at-risk
species. Under this program, private landowners as well as groups working
with private landowners are able to submit proposals directly to the Service
for funding to support these efforts. Each grant must be matched by at least
10 percent of the total project cost either in non-federal dollars or
in-kind contributions.
President Bush originally proposed the creation of the
Private Stewardship Grant program during a speech in Lake Tahoe, Nev.,
in June 2000. The grants announced today, the first ever awarded under the
program, will benefit species ranging from the whooping crane in Nebraska to
the bald eagle in Washington
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal Federal
agency responsible for conserving, protecting and enhancing fish,
wildlife and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the
American people. The Service manages the 95-million-acre National Wildlife
Refuge System, which
encompasses 540 national wildlife refuges, thousands of
small wetlands and other special management areas. It also operates 69
national fish hatcheries, 64 fishery resources offices and 81 ecological
services field stations. The agency enforces federal wildlife laws,
administers the Endangered Species Act, manages migratory bird populations,
restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife
habitat such as wetlands, and helps foreign governments with their
conservation efforts. It also oversees the Federal Aid program, which
distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing
and hunting equipment to state fish and wildlife agencies.
For more information about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, visit our homepage at http://www.fws.gov
A complete list of Private Partnership Stewardship grant
awards can be found at http://endangered.fws.gov/grants/private_stewardship/Awards.pdf.
This list is 23 pages. It is interesting how
many of the grants go to the Nature Conservancy, Ducks unlimited, land
trust or to other land grab groups.
http://www.usnewswire.com -0- /U.S. Newswire
202-347-2770/ 05/28 16:06