Past Press Releases for 2009
January 9, 2009
Maine Receives $2.1 Million in Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grants
Augusta – The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and its conservation partners have been awarded more than $2.1 million in conservation grants from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant Program.
IF&W Director of Resources Management Ken Elowe said the grants are significant in many ways. Maine competed with many other states for funding, and four of the five proposals submitted by IF&W were accepted by USF&WS. Local and state conservation groups, coordinated by the Maine Wetlands Protection Coalition, of which Dr. Elowe is chair, demonstrated the need to conserve coastal wetlands to benefit fish, wildlife and their habitats, and facilitated the development of creative conservation projects with willing landowners.
The Coastal Conservation funds will be matched by contributions from private landowners and conservation groups.
“It was a cooperative effort that successfully garnered these funds in what essentially is a nationwide competition for money,” said Dr. Elowe. “To receive four out of the five grant proposals we submitted is extraordinary, and it demonstrates the strong desire of conservation groups to protect valuable wetlands and the importance and credibility of Maine’s conservation efforts nationally.”
The groups participating in this effort within the Maine Wetlands Protection Coalition are the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, The Nature Conservancy, Maine Coast Heritage Trust, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Gulf of Maine Coastal Program, the Pleasant River Wildlife Foundation, the Great Auk Land Trust, and the Kennebec Estuary Conservation Collaboration.
The grants and the projects the funds will support permanently protect nationally significant coastal wetland habitats in the following areas:
Mason Bay Wetlands Conservation, to protect 496.5 acres of coastal wetland habitat in Mason Bay, Washington County, $521,000;
Grain Point Wetlands Conservation, to protect 204.4-acres in Pleasant Bay, Washington County, $375,000;
Upper Maquoit Bay Coastal Wetlands, to permanently protect a 72-acre tract of coastal shorefront on Maquoit Bay in Brunswick, Cumberland County, through the purchase of a conservation easement, $600,000;
Kennebec Estuary Robinhood Cove Project, to protect 157.5-acres embedded within the greater 3,420-acre Little River subsite of the Kennebec Estuary Conservation Project, Sagadahoc County, $610,185.
