14 



watershed, the largest undeveloped piece of ground along the At- 

 lantic seaboard. It is a cooperative effort — apart from what you 

 hear about private landowners being opposed to conservation, this 

 is a partnership that DU, the Foundation, TNC, and the States, 

 have forged which the local landowners have taken a leading role 

 in and are very supportive of. The Foundation is right in the 

 middle of that. 



Also, I wanted to mention another California project, the Co- 

 sumnes River Preserve. Again TNC, Ducks Unlimited, the Founda- 

 tion, State of California, many other partners are involved there, a 

 great project. The Foundation just helped ensure acquisition of one 

 of the last key pieces of the core of that project, called the Crane 

 Ranch area. 



Interestingly enough, we have seen immediate response from wa- 

 terfowl and other kinds of wildlife on this project. I talked with 

 some of our folks in California last week, and they said that this 

 year with the water and the availability of the property there they 

 actually saw Asian varieties of ducks and waterfowl, water birds 

 coming across into this area of California where they had not seen 

 them in the past. It drew a tremendous amount of visitors from 

 San Francisco and Sacramento. And that is a project that is spark- 

 ing a lot of interest and public enthusiasm. 



Very briefly, that is just one of the partnerships we have under- 

 taken. 



One of the things that we hope that you folks will encourage 

 your colleagues on the Appropriations Committee to do — we sup- 

 port raising of the ceiling for the permanence of the $25 million. 

 We hope you work with your Appropriations Committee colleagues 

 to ensure that that amount is appropriated for the Foundation. 

 Money remains a challenge to the Foundation, and there are more 

 things that we could do if there were more funds available and 

 things we would like to do. I hope that you will support that. 



Finally, one of the things that we hope that the Subcommittee 

 and staff can look at and perhaps clarify as they complete their 

 work on this legislation is clarifying that about the matching re- 

 quirements for projects done under the auspices of the Foundation. 

 We very much support the matching requirement. 



As Mike mentioned, it is really historic and unprecedented. It 

 has done so much good work having the two-to-one match. We 

 want to encourage them to look at the matching requirement and 

 clarify just what they mean by the requirements for matches and 

 that all partners involved in the matching situation are working 

 under the same set of facts and rules there. 



In conclusion — I see the red light is on and I don't want it to ex- 

 plode in front of Gary — but I just want to thank the Committee 

 and the Subcommittee for its support of the Foundation. We sup- 

 port it. It is a great actor in the conservation community. We look 

 forward to working with you on it and hope you continue to sup- 

 port it. 



Thank you. 



Mr. HocHBRUECKNER. Thank you, Mr. Sutherland. 



[The statement of Mr. Sutherland may be found at end of hear- 

 ing.] 



