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Land and Water Conservation Fund Coalition Releases New Report on Nation’s Parks, Forests, Wildlife Habitat and Recreation Areas
New Administration budget says "Yes" to increased funding of the LWCF
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA — March 2009 — The Nature Conservancy and 51 national, regional and state land conservation and outdoor recreation groups have released a report which documents the decline of two major federal land conservation programs and the need to restore federal funding to protect America’s public lands. The two conservation programs are the Land and Water Conservation Fund and the Forest Legacy Program.
The report, Conserving America’s Landscapes, urges Congress and the Obama Administration to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), the premier federal program for buying open space and creating parks, forests, wildlife habitat, and recreation areas across the country. Since its creation in 1965, LWCF funding has been used to safeguard some of America’s most iconic places; including Redwood National Park, Valley Forge National Historical Park, the Appalachian Trail National Scenic Trail, and the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site. Here in Indiana, the LWCF has funded such worthy projects as the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and the Hoosier National Forest.
The Obama Administration’s recently released the Fiscal Year 2010 budget proposal, which includes an increase for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and commits to the goal of reaching full funding of $900 million over the next five years. This funding could increase the amount of protected natural lands in and around Indiana’s national treasures and neighborhood parks.
“There are many amazing places that have been protected in Indiana through the Land and Water Conservation Program,” said Mary McConnell, state director for The Nature Conservancy’s Indiana Chapter. “Our nation needs a secure, reliable source for land protection funding. Dependable funding is an essential tool to ensure our heritage of natural wonders and working landscapes.”
The LWCF program also includes an important state grants component that supports parks at the state and local level. These grants go toward the development of park facilities and recreational amenities – creating quality jobs and supporting the quality-of-life factors that can make the difference for communities seeking to attract employers and a strong work force. Dramatic funding declines have resulted in the deterioration of state and local parks and recreational facilities. Forty-four states report at least 95 percent of the funding need for outdoor recreation facilities and parkland is presently unmet.
The LWCF’s state grants component has funded numerous projects, including the Pokagon State Park Toboggan Run, State Park Campgrounds, local parks, swimming pools and trails.
Funding is also needed for the Forest Legacy Program (FLP), administered by the U.S. Forest Service, to help private landowners maintain working forests to provide multiple benefits to adjacent communities including watershed protection, economic sustainability, wildlife habitat, and public recreation. From a satellite view of Indiana, one can see that Brown County and the surrounding area still hosts the largest continuous forest block in the state. Protecting that unfragmented forest block and the species that depend on these forests are goals of The Nature Conservancy’s Brown County Hills Project Office. A handful of such projects have been completed in Brown County with the Forest Legacy Program.
The Conserving America’s Landscapes report highlights the importance of these two programs to conserve wildlife habitat, provide public recreational access, prevent the spread of wildfires, support local economies and help species adapt to climate change.
The LWCF program has been fully funded by Congress at the authorized level of $900 million only once since its inception forty-four years ago, with a funding level of only $156 million nationwide last year. Dramatic declines in program funding over the past seven years have had serious negative consequences for our national parks, forests, refuges and other federal lands. Primarily funded from federal offshore oil revenues received by the federal government, more than $17 billion of this authorized funding has been diverted away from land conservation for other uses.
In the report, the Land and Water Conservation Fund Coalition recommends full and dedicated funding of $900 million annually for the LWCF federal and state grants programs and an annual allocation of $125 million the Forest Legacy Program.
The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. The Conservancy and its more than 1 million members have protected nearly 120 million acres worldwide. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.
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