Description
The Land Trust Alliance (the Alliance) requests a $30,000 single source grant from the USFWS Division of Realty (the Division). With a growing focus on collaborative conservation and partnerships, the Alliance will enhance the ability of private conservation partners to work with the Division to complete its mission in a cost-effective manner, particularly in a time when land acquisition funds are dropping. The Land Trust Alliance promotes voluntary private land conservation to benefit communities and natural systems, and represents more than 1,700 land trusts across America. The Alliances mission -- saving the places people love by strengthening land conservation across America -- complements and often directly benefits the National Wildlife Refuge System. In Fiscal Year 2012, despite falling conservation budgets, nearly half the land that the Division acquired was donated, in both fee and easement, by private partners. Working with land trust partners significantly helped the Division to achieve those results. The Alliance provides its non-governmental members, as well as local, state and federal government partners, invaluable advice on all topics concerning voluntary land conservation. To that end, the funding being requested is intended for the Alliance to ensure that its members are educated on how to work directly with the USFWS Division of Realty, with a particular emphasis on working with the National Wildlife Refuge System, to conserve land within the Systems boundaries. In effect, the Alliance is directly and indirectly teaching land trusts how to donate land to the National Wildlife Refuge System. The Alliance will use these funds primarily for education. Our goal is to ensure that land trusts have the skills to be effective land acquisition partners. The Alliance will offer a number of educational and training opportunities to land trust staffs, boards and volunteers to help land trusts become better informed about land conservation issues and more effective at conserving land. Land Trust Standards and Practices, the ethical and technical guidelines for the responsible operation of a land trust are a core component of the educational offerings. To ensure that land trusts have the skills to be effective land acquisition partners, among the topics addressed will be conservation finance strategies, project due diligence, protecting land for biodiversity, and protecting water resources through strategic conservation planning. While a registration fee is usually required for training activities, many of the trainings that the Alliance offers are subsidized by grants so that the trainings are affordable, or free, for members of the land trust community. In addition, the Alliance will engage partners, including federal agencies, to share information with land trusts about how to work effectively with a variety of programs, initiatives and funding sources. For example, workshops offered in the course of a year include topics such as The Land and Water Conservation Fund: Strategic Shifts and Interagency Collaboration to Support National Landscape Initiatives and The National Wildlife Refuge System; Partnering with Land Trusts and Local Governments. The Alliances website (http://www.landtrustalliance.org) provides descriptions of the various on-line and in-person training opportunities for land trusts. These include advanced legal training, state, regional and national in-person trainings, standards and practices curricula, and a host of webinars.