25 



onstration projects that provide a foothold in geographic regions 

 where there are little or no conservation practices ongoing. 



We also support the amendments to the Act to increase funding 

 for this program. We also support Secretary Babbitt's request to 

 amend the Act to relieve Mexico of the full burden of raising U.S. 

 funds and being able to utilize Mexican funds for projects. And, fi- 

 nally, we support the efforts by the department broadly to stress 

 eco regions, and the efforts of Gary Myers, formerly on the Council, 

 and others tasked by the Council with trying to broaden the part- 

 nership base for the Act. 



We feel, and this goes right to the heart of Congressman 

 Weldon's questions, we feel more attention and funding should be 

 directed to projects that protect rare and threatened wetlands sys- 

 tems rather than bottom land hardwoods in the Nation's few re- 

 maining coastal wetlands systems which are down to 5 percent, 

 and yet they rarely receive funding under the Act. 



Rare and unusual wetland systems that provide vital habitat for 

 endangered species almost never receive funding. Projects that are 

 outside the boundaries of joint venture areas and geographic re- 

 gions that cover the major flyways lose 10 points out of 100 auto- 

 matically and entire States are thus left out of funding. 



We have been having discussions on the Council on this and 

 there have been discussions on whether using the North American 

 waterfowl plan as the vision document to guide the Act, and I for 

 one oppose this for the reasons we have just stated. We believe the 

 Act, as originally conceived and passed by Congress, is a broader 

 vehicle for addressing all wetlands systems and species and we 

 want to keep it that way. 



As I say, if we have a fault with the Act, it has been there has 

 not been enough of an effort to distribute program funding as 

 broadly as this kind of partnership program would warrant. For ex- 

 ample, in the past three years there have only been six nongovern- 

 mental partners in the United States to receive Act funding: The 

 Nature Conservancy, Ducks Unlimited, Pheasants Forever, Delta 

 Wildlife Foundation, Massachusetts Audubon, and Minnesota Wa- 

 terfowl Association. 



Fifty percent of the Act's funding goes to Canada but only three 

 groups have received this funding: Ducks Unlimited, Canada Na- 

 ture Conservancy, and Wildlife Habitat of Canada. To put this in 

 perspective, the foundation has awarded 354 grants for wetlands in 

 the last six-and-a-half years ,^ but we have done this by going out 

 and purposely reaching out to nontraditional agencies, nonprofit 

 groups, land trusts, universities, et cetera. And I think this should 

 be the trend for the Act as well to increase the broad base of part- 

 nership support, which in turn, hopefully, will generate more con- 

 gressional support for funding for the Act. 



Thank you. 



Mr. Studds. Thank you very much. 



[The statement of Mr. Eno can be found at the end of the hear- 

 ing. 



Mr. Studds. Finally, Scott Sutherland of Ducks Unlimited. Mr. 

 Sutherland. 



