Minnesota's Habitat Conservation Partnership (HCP) VI Supplemental
Sustained funding and effort by public/private partnerships is essential to protection and restoration efforts aimed at restoring landscape and/or natural resource function. Much of our prairie, wetlands, shorelines, and watersheds have been degraded over a roughly 150-year period, and we cannot restore the “remarkable place known as Minnesota,” without a long-term view, ongoing funding, and focus from conservationists towards that goal. Minnesota’s Habitat Conservation Partnership is a sustained effort (est. in 2000) designed to restore and protect working landscapes & restore landscape function through such a long-term effort.
We will restore, manage or protect 2,094 acres within defined project areas, addressing many of the recommendations cited in the Statewide Conservation and Preservation Plan which states “…habitat issues are arguably the most important issues facing the conservation and preservation of natural resources throughout Minnesota.” We address habitat issues by doing habitat restoration, habitat enhancement, and permanent habitat protection (easement & fee-title).
Eleven formal partners commit $2,470,000 (1.76:1 ratio) in other non-state resources towards the project (an additional 1,813 acres will be restored, managed or protected with these non-state funds). Table 1 (attached) provides a summary of individual partner efforts to restore & protect land. The attached map describes project areas (identical to 2009 project areas) as depicts project locations since inception. Each individual partner outlined in Table 1 also has a detailed work plan outlining results and methods.
$1,344,000 is added to Laws 2009, chapter 143, section 2, subdivision 4, paragraph (e), from the trust fund for the acceleration of agency programs and cooperative agreements. Of this appropriation, $308,000 is to the commissioner of natural resources for agency programs and $1,036,000 is for agreements as follows: $425,000 with Ducks Unlimited, Inc.; $50,000 with National Wild Turkey Federation; $164,000 with the Nature Conservancy; $102,000 with Minnesota Land Trust; $200,000 with the Trust for Public Land; $45,000 with Friends of Detroit Lakes Wetland Management District; and $50,000 to the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe to plan, restore, and acquire fragmented landscape corridors that connect areas of quality habitat to sustain fish, wildlife, and plants. The United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service is an authorized cooperating partner in the appropriation. Expenditures are limited to the project corridor areas as defined in the work program. Land acquired with this appropriation must be sufficiently improved to meet at least minimum habitat and facility management standards as determined by the commissioner of natural resources. This appropriation may not be used for the purchase of residential structures, unless expressly approved in the work program. All conservation easements must be perpetual and have a natural resource management plan. Any land acquired in fee title by the commissioner of natural resources with money from this appropriation must be designated as an outdoor recreation unit under Minnesota Statutes, section 86A.07. The commissioner may similarly designate any lands acquired in less than fee title. A list of proposed restorations and fee title and easement acquisitions must be provided as part of the required work program. All funding for conservation easements must include a long-term stewardship plan and funding for monitoring and enforcing the agreement.