The Administration has released its proposed Federal budget for Fiscal Year 2024. The budget includes $80 million for the Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program, a 33% increase over the budget enacted for the current year.
The Partners for Fish and Wildlife (PFW) Program is one of the most effective and efficient voluntary conservation programs for private landowners and Tribes in the Federal toolbox. Since 1987 the program has partnered on more than 50,000 projects, restoring over 1.5 million wetland acres and 4.5 million upland acres. Many of these restoration projects benefitted not only federal trust species, but also other species of fish and wildlife as well as critical natural infrastructure. The program also achieves financial leverage of over $8 dollars of partner funding for every PFW program dollar invested.
The PFW Program also benefits the landscapes and human communities where projects are implemented. The program creates well over $15 dollars in overall economic impact for each dollar invested and has created over 3,500 jobs. The Partners program truly lives up to its name, working with a broad array of partner organizations and individuals on both individual projects and larger efforts focused on sustaining working landscapes. It provides both funding and technical assistance to efforts that directly impact ecosystem function, restoring habitats for federal trust species while simultaneously enhancing the natural systems upon which all life, including human life, depends.
While the Administration’s budget is a recommendation to the appropriators in Congress, the recommendation reflects a support for the collaborative approach of bringing together resources and expertise from broad groups of landowners and organizations to achieve results supported by all. It is not surprising that the PFW Program is appreciated and supported all across the country by both the conservation and broader communities where it is engaged.
Photo of PFW biologist and landowner in Nevada, by Joe Milmoe/USFWS
