USFWS and NFWF Announce $8.9 Million to Restore and Conserve Habitats in Chesapeake Bay Watershed

WASHINGTON, DC (AUGUST 27, 2024) – Today the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation announced 30 grants totaling $8.9 million to support wildlife habitat, climate resilience, community conservation partnerships and equitable access to nature in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

This year’s slate of grants will advance the goals of the Chesapeake Watershed Investments in Landscape Defense (Chesapeake WILD) Program and leverage more than $13.7 million in grantee matching funds, for a total conservation impact of $22.6 million. The awards announced today will conserve more than 10,000 acres of fish and wildlife habitat, increase recreational access to 2,000 acres, restore nearly 100 miles of streamside forest habitat, and reconnect more than 1,500 miles of aquatic habitat for migratory fish species.

"These funds help support partner-driven, locally led projects to improve water quality, enhance climate resilience, support conservation needs in vulnerable communities, and benefit residents and wildlife across the watershed now and well into the future,” said Service Director Martha Williams. “These investments help support a future for the Chesapeake Watershed where people and nature thrive in an interconnected way and where every community benefits from being part of a healthy watershed."

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the U.S. and home to thousands of species of plants and animals. Nearly one million waterfowl winter on and near the bay each year — approximately one-third of the Atlantic Coast’s migratory population. More than 18 million people live and work in the Chesapeake Bay region, many depending on industries tied to the health of the watershed, like outdoor recreation, farming and fishing.

“The Chesapeake WILD program fulfills a common goal between NFWF and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to conserve, steward, and enhance fish and wildlife habitats and related conservation values in the Chesapeake Bay watershed," said Jeff Trandahl, executive director and chief executive officer of NFWF. “In marrying our legacy of partnership with the Service and our deep and lasting commitments to Chesapeake Bay watershed restoration, the WILD program presents new avenues to accelerate species and habitat restoration and conservation and community engagement in conservation across the region.”

The Chesapeake WILD program was established to support collaborative conservation in the watershed and provide grant funding for community-driven projects that align with five interrelated focal areas for sustaining the health of the watershed and its inhabitants into the future:

• Conserving and restoring imperiled fish and wildlife habitats
• Enhancing climate resilience and readiness
• Building community partnerships and conservation capacity, including in vulnerable communities
• Increasing equitable public access for recreation and human connections with nature
• Improving water quality

The Service partners with NFWF to deliver the Chesapeake WILD grant program as part of the Foundation’s broader Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund — a portfolio of competitive grant programs helping to restore and protect the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Examples of the grant awards include:

• Eastern Shore Land Conservancy ($500,000) will advance long-term landscape resilience on the Delmarva Peninsula by protecting marsh migration corridors between Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and the Nanticoke River in Dorchester County, Maryland, through strategic landowner outreach to conserve approximately 500 acres of important wildlife habitat. This project builds on successful land conservation supported by a 2022 Chesapeake WILD grant.
• The Conservation Fund ($500,000) will expand State Game Lands in Northeast Pennsylvania by permanently protecting the 1,800-acre Carbondale Ridge property located north of Carbondale. This acquisition will create a 4,000-acre wildlife corridor that will improve habitat for listed and at-risk species, enhance outdoor recreation opportunities, and protect water quality in the Chesapeake Bay drainage area of the Susquehanna and Lackawanna River watersheds.
• Trout Unlimited ($493,903) will expand and protect native brook trout strongholds along Halfmoon Run in West Virginia by reconnecting and restoring more than four miles of headwater habitat on public lands and enrolling high-value conservation lands in a brook trout-focused conservation easement conservation easement
  A conservation easement is a voluntary legal agreement between a landowner and a government agency or qualified conservation organization that restricts the type and amount of development that may take place on a property in the future. Conservation easements aim to protect habitat for birds, fish and other wildlife by limiting residential, industrial or commercial development. Contracts may prohibit alteration of the natural topography, conversion of native grassland to cropland, drainage of wetland and establishment of game farms. Easement land remains in private ownership.
  
  Learn more about conservation easement pilot project in Cacapon and Lost River watershed. This climate-resilient landscape provides habitat for 45 rare, threatened, or endangered species and more than 100 Species of Greatest Conservation Need in West Virginia.
• Tioga County Soil and Water Conservation District ($350,000) will collaborate with and deliver funding to multiple existing, local conservation groups in New York engaged in stewardship and enhancement to habitats and conservation values in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The project will permanently protect 1,015 acres, improve 25 acres of riparian riparian
  Definition of riparian habitat or riparian areas.
  
  Learn more about riparian forest buffer, restore five acres of wetland, create 44 new miles of public access, and reach at least 16,000 people through outreach and education focusing on under-served communities.
• Anacostia Watershed Society ($271,576) will conserve wildlife and plants native to the Anacostia River watershed in Washington D.C. and Maryland by restoring two acres of American wild rice habitat, expanding populations of freshwater mussels and American shad, conducting community outreach and recreation events, and developing methods for tracking sea-level rise’s impacts on wild rice populations and the marshlands in the Anacostia River.
• Northern Neck Land Conservancy ($75,000) will advance land protection on Virginia’s Northern Neck Peninsula and increase regional and organizational capacity to sustain land stewardship in the future by planning targeted outreach events and upgrading prioritization maps to identify opportunities to work with willing landowners on habitat conservation. 

A full list of 2024 Chesapeake WILD grant projects is available here. For more information about NFWF’s Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund, please visit www.nfwf.org/chesapeake.

More information about Chesapeake WILD may be found at https://www.fws.gov/program/chesapeake-wild.

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About the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service works with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. For more information, visit www.fws.gov.