U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Gale Norton has announced a grant totaling $160,000 to the Oklahoma Farm Bureau Legal Foundation under the Private Stewardship Grant Program.
The Oklahoma grant will involve eight landowners in western Oklahoma with funding to control the invasive salt cedar and eastern red cedar along the Canadian River and its tributaries in western Oklahoma to restore and improve habitat for the Arkansas River shiner and interior least tern.
“The Private Stewardship Grants Program encourages citizens to take conservation into their own hands by providing incentives for and flexibility in the development of on-the-ground solutions for the conservation of locally imperiled species,” Secretary Norton said. “This seed money supports the growing partnership between Americans and the federal government as we work together to find better and more cost-effective ways to conserve at-risk species found on private lands.”
“Working with private landowners and positive incentives toward conserving and recovering threatened and endangered species through actions like this private stewardship grant awarded to the Foundation should be the new model of cooperation between private property owners and the federal government concerning endangered species regulation,” said Ryan Jackson, Chief Counsel and Associate Director of the Foundation.
“We look forward to working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and I congratulate our newest counsel, Erika McPherson, on her successful work helping to secure this funding.”
Now in its third year, the Private Stewardship Grants Program, administered by the Interior Department’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, provides federal grants on a competitive basis for voluntary conservation projects with private landowners for the benefit of endangered, threatened and other at-risk species. All grants awarded require at least a 10 percent match in non-federal dollars or in-kind contributions.
