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USDA Announces historic $500 million investment in wildlife conservation

USDA $500 million historic investment in wildlife conservation!

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Undersecretary Robert Bonnie has announced the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) will invest $500 million in Working Lands for Wildlife initiatives over the next five years.

This historic investment will ramp up conservation assistance for farmers, ranchers, private forest owners and tribes within key geographies and species, alongside leveraging the Conservation Reserve Program.

Through Working Lands for Wildlife (WLFW), USDA uses a win-win approach to systematically target conservation efforts to improve agricultural and forest productivity which enhance wildlife habitat on working landscapes.

The Working Lands for Wildlife model has proven extremely popular with private landowners across the United States.  More than 8,400 producers teamed up under WLFW and conserved nearly 12 million acres of wildlife habitat since 2010, an area more than five times the size of Yellowstone National Park.  WLFW has helped many species such as the greater sage-grouse in the West and the New England cottontail in the Northeast.

For more info check out this blog from Pheasants Forever!