The California Rice Commission and its project partners have received a $1.5 million Conservation Innovation Grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.
The project is in in partnership with NRCS, Ducks Unlimited, the California Ricelands Waterbird Foundation, Point Blue Conservation Science and FlowWest.
It is designed to:
• Provide funding to enhance approximately 10,000 acres through 2022.
• Retain professional fundraising development services to assist the waterbird foundation in pursuing major donors and developing a sustainable fundraising plan to attract future investments into ricelands habitat conservation projects.
• Develop and refine technical tools to enable the foundation to select the best habitat projects each year based upon regional environmental and habitat quality factors as well as historic waterbird use patterns in the Sacramento Valley.
For questions about the foundation, contact Environmental Affairs Manager Paul Buttner at pbuttner@calrice.org. For habitat program implementation inquiries, contact Wildlife Programs Manager Luke Matthews at lmatthews@calrice.org.
The California Rice Commission provided information for this article.