2010 Capacity Grants Program
The IWJV functions to support strategic and partnership-based bird conservation in accordance with the goals and objectives of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP), U.S. Shorebird Conservation Plan (USSCP), North American Waterbird Conservation Plan, and Partners in Flight Landbird Conservation Plan, and the State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAP) as they apply to IWJV objectives. The IWJV is committed to: 1) biological planning/conservation design (determining what needs to be done and where to maintain bird populations at desired levels), 2) habitat delivery (assisting our partners with on-the-ground habitat conservation), and 3) monitoring/evaluation/applied research (supporting key monitoring programs and assumption-driven research).
The IWJV has developed a new Capacity Grants Program to provide JV partners organized through the IWJV’s 11 State Steering Committees with the opportunity to strategically build the capacity needed to effectively deliver partnership-based bird habitat conservation. This new program fully recognizes that people, rather than federal and state funding, are often the bottleneck to focused conservation delivery. Our goal is to help our broad IWJV partnership put the right people in the right places to catalyze habitat conservation (i.e. projects and programs) that likely wouldn't happen in the absence of the additional capacity.
Capacity grants are intended to build the habitat conservation delivery capacity of our partners to access significant funding from other programs (Farm Bill, NAWCA, etc). It is intended that successful capacity grants will result in sustainable conservation partnerships. These partnerships may be organized around focus areas, priority habitats, promising funding sources (e.g., Farm Bill programs), or community-based coalitions. These conservation partnerships, once supported with IWJV funds, work to strengthen their infrastructure and expand their ability to contribute to IWJV habitat objectives.
The 2010 IWJV Capacity Grants Program Guidelines are available at the following link:
2010 Capacity Grants Guidelines
2010 IWJV Annual Operational Plan
2010 Capacity Grants Program Press Release
JV Matrix
The application deadline is January 22, 2010.
Capacity Grants Program: JV-Wide Prioritization
The IWJV has established Waterfowl, Shorebird, Waterbird, and Landbird Science Teams to carry out conservation planning in accordance with the objectives of the four major bird conservation initiatives – North American Waterfowl Management Plan, U.S. Shorebird Conservation Plan, North American Waterbird Conservation Plan, and Partners in Flight – and the North American Bird Conservation Initiative.
The Science Teams are identifying regionally important landscapes and developing population-habitat models to determine habitat objectives and build decision support tools for priority species using the principles of Strategic Habitat Conservation products of this work will be presented in the 2010 IWJV Implementation Plan.
The Capacity Grants Program was designed to start building the capacity of JV partners to deliver strategic habitat conservation in priority landscapes of the Intermountain West. These geographic priorities will be fully developed upon completion of the 2010 Implementation Plan, but the priorities identified in the following maps for waterfowl, shorebirds, and landbirds will assist the IWJV with ranking Capacity Grants submitted in the current cycle. These maps are not all-inclusive of IWJV priorities; they simply serve as a benchmark relative to our current planning.
WATERFOWL
Non-Breeding (Wintering and Migrating) Waterfowl: The following five landscapes have been identifies as having the greatest number of use-days at NAWMP Goal levels. The Southern Oregon and Northeastern California (SONEC) region and Great Salt Lake are continentally significant for spring and fall migrants, respectively, constituting two of the most important waterfowl staging areas in North America.
Non-Breeding Waterfowl Priority Landscapes
Non-Breeding Waterfowl Priority Landscapes - SONEC
Breeding Waterfowl: The IWJV has not yet specifically delineated geographic breeding waterfowl priority landscapes. However, the data assembled by the IWJV to date suggests that the following landscapes may contribute substantially to breeding waterfowl conservation:
- California: NE California included in SONEC (see non-breeding map)
- Oregon: Southern Oregon included in SONEC (see non-breeding map)
- Washington: Columbia Basin (see non-breeding map, includes Channel Scablands)
- Idaho: Teton Basin/Henry’s Fork, Bear River/Bear Lake
- Montana: Blackfoot Valley, Centennial Valley/Beaverhead, Mission Valley
- Wyoming: Bear River/Cokeville Meadows, Upper Green River Basin, Goshen Hole
- Colorado: North Park, San Luis Valley
- Utah: Great Salt Lake
- Nevada: Ruby Lakes
SHOREBIRDS
The IWJV Shorebird Science Team has identified the landscapes identified in the map below as “Shorebird Key Sites” within the Intermountain West. These key sites are the IWJV’s shorebird priority landscapes at the present time.
Key Shorebird Sites without Relief
LANDBIRDS
The IWJV Landbird Science Coordinator has developed a subset of the IWJV’s 382 Bird Habitat Conservation Areas that correspond with the six Priority A upland habitat types.
Land Bird Rule Set
Priority BHCAs Ag
Priority BHCAs Aspen
Priority BHCAs Dry Forest
Priority BHCAs Riparian
Priority BHCAs Sagebrush
WATERBIRDS
The planning of the IWJV Waterbird Science Team is not as advanced as the other three science teams to date. As such, Capacity Grants applications should simply utilize the most compelling waterbird information available if the proposal addresses waterbird habitat consistent with the Intermountain West Waterbird Conservation Plan. The IWJV has identified priority and umbrella waterbird species; see the following link:
IWJV Waterbird Science Team Update 2008