Author Archives: Jordan Cooley
Five Star and Urban Waters Restoration Grant Program
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation The Five Star and Urban Waters Restoration Grant Program, administered by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), develops community stewardship of natural resources by preserving ecologic services and enhancing wildlife habitat. Five Star Grant projects often concern water quality issues in target watersheds, stormwater runoff, and degraded shorelines in coastal, riparian, and wetland habitats. Five Star grants range from $20,000 to $50,000, and average $25,000 per project. Projects can occur on public land (such as a park) or private land (such as… Read More →
Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP)
USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) EQIP About EQIP The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) is a voluntary conservation program administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The program’s mission is to promote the compatibility of agricultural production, forest management, and environmental conservation. Financial and technical assistance are provided to enrolled landowners to implement conservation practices (structural and management) on eligible lands. Eligible lands include cropland, non-industrial private forestland, pastureland, ranchland, and other types of farm land. Applicants for an EQIP contract must control or own the… Read More →
Debt for Nature Program
USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) The Debt for Nature (DFN) program is administered by the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA). DFN is only available to persons with FSA loans secured by real estate. DFN allows eligible landowners to reduce their FSA debt while practicing wildlife stewardship on their farms. Eligible landowners can have a portion of their debt cancelled in exchange for protecting natural resources on marginal cropland and environmentally sensitive lands. Participants in the DFN program enter into a conservation contract of 10, 30, or 50 years… Read More →
Conservation Stewardship Program (CStP)
USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) The Conservation Stewardship Program (CStP) is a voluntary conservation program administered by US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The program’s mission is to assist agricultural producers in maintaining and enhancing their existing conservation efforts, especially in relation to Texas’ program priorities: water quantity, soil erosion, and plant health and condition. The theme for CStP is “payment for performance“. Eligible lands include privately owned and Tribal agricultural lands, croplands, pasturelands, rangelands, grasslands, and nonindustrial private forest land. This includes… Read More →
Conservation Technical Assistance Program (CTA)
USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) The Conservation Technical Assistance (CTA) program is a voluntary program administered by the National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to provide land users with the technical assistance needed to maintain and restore healthy productive landscapes. CTA assistance can help address a broad range of conservation topics including enhancement of fish and wildlife habitat, soil loss from erosion, agricultural waste and nutrient management, and long term sustainability of production lands. Land users such as agricultural and silvicultural producers, local governments, citizen groups, Tribal governments,… Read More →
Conservation Reserve Program General Signup
USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is an agricultural land conservation program administrated by the Farm Service Agency (FSA). Twenty years after its inception in 1985, CRP had reduced 450 million tons of soil erosion per year, restored 2 million acres of wetlands and adjacent buffers, reduced 48 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air, and protected 170,000 miles of stream. According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas currently has 3 million acres enrolled in CRP. CRP offers an annual… Read More →
Conservation Reserve Program Continuous Signup
USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) The Continuous Conservation Reserve Program (CCRP) is an agricultural land conservation program administrated by the Farm Service Agency (FSA) and is an offshoot of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Like CRP, it is a voluntary program available to farmers and other agricultural and silvicultural operations with the mission to restore and protect environmentally sensitive lands with special emphasis on wetlands, wildlife habitat, and water quality buffers. As with the CRP program, farmers remove sensitive areas from agricultural production for 10 to 15 years…. Read More →
Celebrate Urban Birds Mini-Grant Program
Cornell University Lab of Ornithology Celebrate Urban Birds (CUB) reaches out to underserved urban and rural communities to promote interest in birds, science, the arts, neighborhood greening, and habitat creation. Developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, CUB has worked with over 9,000 community organizations around the country since 2007. CUB administers a mini-grant program to help fund CUB project and event costs. The average award for a mini-grant is between $100 and $750 dollars. Each CUB project will incorporate community involvement, the arts, greening, birds, and citizen… Read More →
Clean Water State Revolving Fund Loan Program: Texas Loan Program
Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) The Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF), which is authorized by the Clean Water Act and funded by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), provides below-market interest rate loans to applicants wishing to implement projects for estuary management, nonpoint source pollution management, or wastewater management. Applicants can be cities, counties, districts, river authorities, and private owners. Funding can be used for planning, design, and construction of projects. CWSRF can be used for wetland projects. According to the EPA, wetland projects are usually categorized… Read More →
Carbon Storage and Credits: Landowner/Developer and Aggregators
Various Private and Nonprofit Entities Choosing a Marketplace for Carbon Trade No one single program deals with carbon offset credits. One branch of the carbon market is the compliance market where carbon emitters are required to offset their emissions by local, state, federal, or international policy. The other branch of the carbon market is the voluntary market where individuals and businesses volunteer to purchase carbon offsets in order to reduce their greenhouse gas emission impacts. There are several marketplaces (often called exchanges) for buyers and sellers of carbon… Read More →
Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances (CCAA)
US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Candidate Conservation Agreements with Assurances are a tool for non-Federal private landowners who voluntarily take measures to stabilize and restore populations of rare or candidate species before they are listed under the Endangered Species Act. Landowners participate in identifying threats to these species, by taking part in conservation activities specific to the species, and by improving and maintaining critical habitat. This formal agreement between the landowner and US Fish and Wildlife Service guarantees that if the CCAA if fulfilled, the landowner will… Read More →
AgriLife Extension Program
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service The AgriLife Extension Program, a part of Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, is an education agency with a statewide network of professional educators and volunteers. AgriLife presents research-based education programs on a wide variety of topics from 4-H Youth Development to Disaster Management. Courses of interest to wetland owners may include restoration and conservation of wildlife habitat, wildlife and fisheries management, water use efficiency, watershed health and protection, and wetland restoration. The AgriLife Extension Program website offers online courses and job training, access… Read More →
Conservation Expense Federal Tax Deduction
IRS Deductions for Conservation Expenses In general, farm landowners and tenants can deduct expenses related to soil or water conservation, farmland erosion prevention, or endangered species recovery from their federal taxes, where otherwise these would be considered capital expenses. The deduction for conservation expenses is capped at 25% of the gross income from farming. Conservation expenses can only be deducted by those in the business of farming for profit. See the IRS “Farmer’s Tax Guide” for details. Conservation practices must be consistent with an approved Natural Resources Conservation… Read More →
Forested Wetlands of the Piney Woods
The Piney Woods The Piney Woods ecoregion and its associated forested wetlands is made up of pine or mixed pine-hardwood forests interspersed with small farms and ranches. It occurs north of Houston and extends eastward to Louisiana and northward to Oklahoma and is higher in elevation that the Gulf Coast prairies and marshes. Its ridges and upland areas are dominated by loblolly, shortleaf, and occasionally longleaf pines while its bottomland areas contain hardwoods such as oak, sweetgum, and elm. Where the Piney Woods ecoregion and the upper Texas… Read More →
Change in Texas Land Use
Loss of Working Land in Texas According to Texas Land Trends, ninety-five percent of land in Texas is privately owned. Private farm, ranch, and forest land comprised 83% or 142 million acres of the state land base. Driven by population growth, working lands are rapidly being converted to non-agricultural uses. Texas leads the nation in loss of working land acreage: between 1982 and 2010, Texas lost 4.1 million acres of working lands to urban uses. Texas’ population grew by 500,000 new residents each year between 1997 and 2012…. Read More →
Status of Wetlands in Texas
Wetlands in the Conterminous US Wetlands are surveyed nationally on a 5-year cycle by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). The most recent survey estimated that the continental United States has around 110 million acres of wetlands. This showed a decline in the nation’s wetland acreage, with a net loss of 62,300 acres of wetlands. The greatest losses were experienced in freshwater wetlands on the Atlantic and Gulf coastal plain of the southeast United States, including coastal Texas. Wetlands in the Coastal Watersheds of the Conterminous US… Read More →
Coastal Prairie and Pothole Wetlands
The Gulf Coast Plain is characterized by prairies laced with bayous and rivers flowing toward the Gulf of Mexico. Along the coast, barrier islands and estuarine salt grass marshes protected the inland from storm damage and served as nurseries for birds, fish and crustaceans. Low-lying bottomland along rivers and bayous developed rare woodland ecosystems, while tallgrass prairies, pothole wetlands, and oak groves dominated upland areas. Prairie pothole wetlands once covered vast expanses (about 25% to 30%) of the Texas coastal prairie. These shallow dish-shaped depressions regularly dry out… Read More →
Texas Prairie Wetlands Project
Ducks Unlimited The Texas Prairie Wetlands Project (TPWP) is a partnership between Ducks Unlimited, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The TPWP mission is to create overwintering habitat for waterfowl and improve health and survival rates before migration in the spring. TPWP works with private landowners in 28 counties on the Texas Gulf Coast to restore and enhance existing wetlands and to create new wetlands. TPWP provides technical assistance for surveying, engineering, and designing a wetland project and… Read More →
Agricultural Conservation Easement Program’s Wetland Reserve Easements
CEP WRE, created in the 2014 Farm Bill is the newest version of the previously authorized Wetlands Reserve Program. Under ACEP WRE, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) provides financial and technical support to private landowners and Indian tribes to protect, enhance, or restore wetlands. A wetland reserve easement is used to accomplish this protection. Read More →