NOAA Renews National Partnership With The Nature Conservancy

Partnership Provides $800,000 for Marine Conservation around the United States

ARLINGTON, VA— November 9, 2007 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Restoration Center recently announced a new three-year partnership with The Nature Conservancy to restore habitat in some of the United States' most valuable coastal ecosystems. During the first year of the new partnership, the NOAA Restoration Center will provide $800,000 to support new projects that address ailing oyster reefs, test ecologically sustainable approaches to protecting shorelines, and remove barriers to fish migrations in coastal rivers.

Since 2001, the Conservancy has worked in partnership with the NOAA Restoration Center to implement innovative conservation activities that benefit marine, estuarine and riparian habitats on Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the country, as well as in the Gulf of Mexico and Hawaii. In the past two partnerships, almost 60 projects were funded for over $4 million dollars in 20 states. Examples of projects funded this year include removal of dams on the Taunton River in Massachusetts, restoration of oyster reefs in Florida’s Indian River Lagoon, and restoration of salmon spawning habitat in Alaska.

"Our partnership with NOAA's Restoration Center is a vital part of The Nature Conservancy's efforts to restore and protect habitat and the diversity of life along our coasts,” said Lynne Hale, director of The Nature Conservancy’s Global Marine Team. “The restoration projects funded through this partnership not only support our conservation work, but also help the people and communities that depend on resources from healthy coasts and oceans."

The NOAA Restoration Center has worked with community organizations to support locally-driven habitat restoration projects in marine, estuarine, and riparian areas since 1996. NOAA-funded projects provide strong on-the-ground habitat-restoration components that offer educational and social benefits for people and their communities in addition to long-term ecological benefits for NOAA trust resources.

With more than 100 marine projects in 22 countries and all coastal U.S. states, The Nature Conservancy focuses on marine conservation that achieves demonstrable results. Working with partners, we create lasting conservation results that benefit marine life, local communities and economies. Our unique approach is to protect and restore the best examples of healthy ocean and coastal habitats through science, market-based strategies, restoration and building resilience against threats.

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.