Secretary's Column: New Approach to Conservation Creates New Partnerships, New Jobs

From USDA:

Posted by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, on January 14, 2015 at 3:40 PM

This graphic outlines the effectiveness of the RCPP program, leveraging Federal and partner support. Click to enlarge.

When USDA unveiled the new Regional Conservation Partnership Program last year, I said that this effort would pioneer a new era of conservation. As of today, the program is doing just that—leveraging an unprecedented three-quarters-of-a-billion dollar investment in projects to preserve clean land and water and create new jobs across the country.

One of the innovative programs in the 2014 Farm Bill, the Regional Conservation Partnership Program brings a wide variety of new partners together—from private businesses, to universities, to local and Tribal governments, to non-profit organizations and more—to develop their own action plans and to pledge their own resources to the project. Local organizations are in the driver’s seat, setting priorities and developing conservation projects that make sense for their communities.

The response to this new approach to conservation projects was overwhelming. Earlier this year, when local partnerships submitted their plans to USDA, they requested more than six times the amount of available funding in the first round. This incredible response is a call to action and it shows how much need there is for a program like RCPP.

From the first round of applications, we selected 115 of the most effective, most innovative projects from across the country to receive more than $370 million in the first round funding. Local partners will invest over $400 million more, for a total funding impact of nearly $800 million.

Leveraging our own resources by encouraging private investment in conservation means we can do more and have a greater impact than we ever could on our own. Since 2009, USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service has worked with 750,000 producers and landowners to implement conservation activities on 325 million acres. The Regional Conservation Partnership Program helps us to extend the impact of our resources even further. Over the next five years, USDA plans to invest a total of $1.2 billion through the program, leveraging an estimated $2.4 billion for conservation in total with the matching investment from partnering organizations.

Today’s announcement is just the beginning. Keeping the momentum going, we will soon take proposals for new projects. Another round of funding will be announced later this year, and USDA is working with new applicants to develop partnership plans that will enable even more worthy projects to be completed in the future. To learn more about the Regional Conservation Partnership Program and to see a list of this year’s projects, visit www.nrcs.usda.gov. For more information on today’s announcement, you can listen to a media call with Secretary Vilsack and NRCS Chief Jason Weller.

Location map for RCPP projects. Click to enlarge.

Secretary's Column: Our Nation's Wilderness: Yours to Enjoy and Protect

USDA Blog Post:

Posted by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, on March 28, 2014 at 12:00 PM

This year marks the 50^th anniversary of the Wilderness Act. When he signed the Act in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson said, “If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.”

His foresight, along with the work of many of his contemporaries, has allowed generations of Americans to enjoy the natural beauty of our nation.

The Wilderness Act itself was landmark legislation that formally established protections for undeveloped tracts of land across the United States and created the country’s National Wilderness Preservation System.

Many wilderness areas are within a day’s drive of America’s largest cities, and showcase some of our most special places and landscapes. Across the country, 758 wilderness areas cover almost 110 million acres and boast forested mountains, alpine meadows, rock peaks above timberline, tundra, lava beds, deserts, swamps, coastal lands, and islands.

While it is impossible to measure its intrinsic value, many people appreciate the wilderness and wild lands simply for the continued existence of areas where the Earth and its community of life are untrammeled by humans. For others, wilderness areas have important cultural significance. They are home to the traditional ancestral lands of some American Indians and Alaska Natives, lands held sacred by Tribal citizens.

Wilderness areas also provide more quantifiable, far-reaching benefits that benefit each of us, whether or not you’ve ever set foot in a wilderness area. They provide abundant supplies of clean air and water and store and sequester carbon. They sustain biodiversity by providing a habitat for a wide variety of plants and animals and supporting healthy landscapes where rare and endangered species thrive. Areas that remain relatively untouched by modern society also provide important natural areas for scientific study of flora and fauna.

Finally, as March and National Nutrition Month come to a close and spring begins, now is a great time for kids and families to get outdoors as a way to be healthy and active, a key component of the First Lady’s Let’s Move! Outside initiative. Wilderness areas—located in all but six of our 50 states and enjoyed by more than 12 million Americans every year—offer the opportunity to hike, backpack, rock climb, canoe and horseback ride, with some of our nation’s most beautiful vistas in the background.

Learn more about our nation’s wilderness areas and where you can explore the great outdoors near your community at www.fs.fed.us/locatormap.

Secretary's Column: A New Report Shows the Critical Benefits of Farm Bill Conservation

USDA Blog Post:

Posted by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, on December 6, 2013 at 12:00 PM

America’s farmers, ranchers and landowners have led the way in recent years to conserve and protect our soil, water and wildlife habitat.

With the help of Farm Bill programs, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has worked with a record number of producers since 2009 – more than 500,000 of them – to get this important work done.

Ever since the Dust Bowl, we’ve known that investments in conservation on working lands and other wild areas is important. And this week, a new report amplified our understanding for the critical importance of the Farm Bill in protecting natural resources in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

The report showed that over the past seven years, conservation efforts have reduced the amount of nitrogen leaving fields by 48.6 million pounds each year – about 26 percent – and reducing phosphorus by 7.1 million pounds, or 46 percent.

These conservation practices are also preventing soil erosion, helping to ensure that our farm fields across the Chesapeake Bay Watershed remain vibrant and productive in the years to come. Conservation practices have lowered the estimated amount of eroded soil by about 15.1 million tons every year, or 60 percent. Put another way, that’s enough soil to fill about 150,000 railcars.

In addition to ensuring healthy cropland and clean water, these programs strengthen wildlife habitat that boosts outdoor recreation. From hunting and fishing, to camping and hiking, outdoor recreation adds more than $640 billion in benefits to our economy each year.

The Chesapeake Bay watershed initiative is just one of many landscape-scale initiatives undertaken by USDA in recent years. From the Mississippi River Basin to the Ogallala Aquifer, USDA has worked with producers to enroll millions of acres in targeted landscape initiatives – and today’s report once again highlights the positive impact this work can have across the nation.

From clean soil to healthier water, the benefits of conservation impact every American – and they’re one reason why USDA is pressing Congress this fall to provide a comprehensive, multiyear Food, Farm and Jobs Bill that continues our record conservation efforts.

A new Farm Bill would continue targeted conservation efforts on working lands that ensure soil quality, water quality, erosion control, forest restoration, and wildlife habitat.  It would continue major working land programs such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and Conservation Stewardship Program, through which USDA has provided more than 190,000 landowner contracts since 2009, as well as the Conservation Reserve Program under which we have held a signup each year during this Administration.

A new Farm Bill would also ensure that tens of millions of acres remain in conservation practices by linking crop insurance compliance to conservation program participation.

Across the nation, our farmers, ranchers and landowners are stepping up to protect our natural resources. They deserve our support – and the most important thing that can happen today is for Congress to achieve passage of a new Food, Farm and Jobs Bill that stands by producers and continues our long legacy of conservation.