Partners for Fish and Wildlife

National Priorities

The Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program has a tremendous legacy of developing partnerships, leveraging resources and finding win-win scenarios that benefit people, communities and the fish, wildlife and habitats they value and depend on.  New in this generation of plans is a common set of national priorities which have been developed to advance the strategic nature of the program and communicate a unified message about program focus and effectiveness at the national level. These national priorities have been informed by the regional strategic plans which have been honed by over 15 years of planning, implementation and reassessment.

Our 2022-2026 National Priorities are:

1. Species Conservation: Implement habitat projects within priority areas that prevents decline or supports recovery of species of greatest conservation concern, including federal listed species, Birds of Conservation Concern, pollinators and interjurisdictional fish. This priority supports the Service’s conservation mission and our role as stewards of federal trust species with intent to make improvements in select species status.

2. Habitat Connectivity: Integrate projects at a landscape level to improve habitat connectivity and functionality. This priority recognizes that interconnected habitats and migration corridors are vital to fish and wildlife conservation and the work of these programs can support and leverage other conservation efforts including National Wildlife Refuges and other protected lands.

3. Resilient Ecosystems: Advance ecosystem health and resilience to climate change climate change
Climate change includes both global warming driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns. Though there have been previous periods of climatic change, since the mid-20th century humans have had an unprecedented impact on Earth's climate system and caused change on a global scale.

Learn more about climate change related impacts benefitting communities of fish, wildlife, plants and people. This priority acknowledges that climate change affects all parts of the ecosystem including those in which humans depend and these Programs can work with diverse partners to support conservation actions to help them respond to climate change stressors.