Ducks Unlimited received a $1 million North American Wetlands Conservation Act grant for projects in Iowa last week. NAWCA is a federal matching grants program that provides funding for wetland and migratory bird habitat conservation work across North America.
"Wetlands play a vital role in maintaining the quality of our environment, and NAWCA is the single best investment of federal wetlands dollars anywhere in the federal budget," Iowa Congressman Steve King said. "Ducks Unlimited's ongoing efforts to leverage NAWCA funding with private funds to protect, restore and manage wetland habitat throughout Iowa's portion of the Prairie Pothole Region is an important project that will provide long term benefits to our state and to our people."
This grant represents the second phase of a five-year, multi-million dollar conservation partnership aimed at protecting, restoring and enhancing critical wetland and associated upland habitat throughout Iowa's portion of the Prairie Pothole Region. Phase-two funds will be leveraged with more than $2 million of additional non-federal matching dollars to conserve more than 765 acres of habitat on public lands.
Key partners on this project include The Nature Conservancy, Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Dickinson County Conservation Board, Kossuth County Conservation Board, Pheasants Forever – Dickinson and Kossuth County Chapters, Matthew Barr, Friends of Union Slough National Wildlife Refuge and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
"This grant represents a coordinated and science-based effort among a very diverse group of conservation partners," Eric Lindstrom, DU regional biologist in Iowa, said. "DU is pleased to be working with such a dedicated group of folks all committed to achieving one common goal –to have a lasting and landscape-scale conservation impact in Iowa."
Recognized as one of the nation's most effective wetlands conservation programs, NAWCA promotes private-public partnerships aimed at successfully implementing the habitat objectives of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. Every federal dollar invested by NAWCA must be matched by at least one dollar from non-federal sources, but due to the success of this program, NAWCA funds are often tripled or quadrupled at the local level. Since Congress established NAWCA in 1989, more than $1 billion in federal grants have been matched by an additional $3 billion from non-federal partners to conserve more than 25 million acres of critical habitat for waterfowl and wetland-dependent wildlife.
Ducks Unlimited is the world's largest nonprofit organization dedicated to conserving North America's continually disappearing waterfowl habitats. Established in 1937, Ducks Unlimited has conserved more than 12 million acres thanks to contributions from more than a million supporters across the continent. Guided by science and dedicated to program efficiency, DU works toward the vision of wetlands sufficient to fill the skies with waterfowl today, tomorrow and forever.
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