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Testimony of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation 



Amos S. Eno, Executive Director 



Submitted to the House Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, and Oceans 



Regarding the Teaming with Wildlife Hearing of May 1 996 



July 3, 1996 



I appreciate the opportimity to share with the Chairman and members of the Subcommittee 

 the insights we've gained from our experience with conservation funding for non-game 

 wildlife. With more than 10 years of experience and a grant portfolio of over 1,300 

 conservation projects, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) has had first hand 

 experience addressing the conservation needs of both game and non-game species of wildlife. 



As you know, NFWF is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, created by Congress in 1984, and 

 dedicated to the conservation of natural resources: fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats. 

 Congress created NFWF to pioneer the idea of conserving the nation's resources through 

 partnerships and to provide an interface with the private sector. NFWF provides for enhanced 

 management of the nation's fish and wildlife resources through a comptetitive grants program, 

 using federally appropriated funds to challenge private sector funds. Among our goals are 

 species habitat protection, environmental education, natural resource management, habitat and 

 ecosystem rehabilitation and restoration, and leadership training for conservation professionals. 

 NFWF achieves these goals through five project initiatives: Fisheries Conservation and 

 Management, Wetlands and Private Lands, Wildlife and Habitat Management, Conservation 

 Education, and Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation. 



Many of the early projects in NFWF's grant portfolio were dedicated toward conserving 

 migratory waterfowl and associated wetland habitat, as well as the full assemblage of upland 

 game species and their habitat. Using our federal appropriation as seed money, NFWF jump- 

 started the North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP). Precipitous declines in 

 waterfowl numbers throughout the 1980s made clear the need for action, and it had become 

 apparent that hunting regulations and existing federal acquisition programs alone could not 

 reverse the trend. These species need habitat throughout their migratory routes, but both their 

 breeding and wintering habitats were rapidly disappearing. NFWF funding of the "Step" 

 programs in the late eighties provided funding for the protection of approximately 350,000 

 acres of wetlands and critical migratory waterfowl habitat in Canada and the lower 48 states. 

 Congress, recognizing the value of this approach, subsequently created and funded the North 

 American Wetland Conservation Fund to continue the conservation effort that NFWF 

 pioneered. 



With the success of NAWMP, NFWF began looking for other conservation issues where we 

 could address species facing decline but not yet threatened with extinction. The Partners in 

 Flight Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Program is one direct result. Although 

 relatively few species of migratory non-game birds are perilously close to extinction, the 

 combined effects of habitat loss and degradation on breeding grounds in the U.S. and Canada 

 and on their wintering range in Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean Islands have begun 

 to erode the population levels of many bird species. Urbanization in North America continues 



