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AUGUSTA, Maine -- The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) and the Maine Natural Areas Program (MNAP), a division of the Maine Department of Conservation, have been awarded $655,000 from the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service to continue implementing Maine's Landowner Incentive Program (LIP), which provides funds and technical assistance to private landowners for the conservation of habitat supporting the state's rare, threatened and endangered plants and animals. MDIFW and MNAP have combined their expertise to develop a nationally recognized program focusing conservation efforts on privately owned habitat that supports Maine's rarest species. This grant will support implementation of the state's ongoing, broad-scale habitat conservation planning effort, Beginning with Habitat. The objectives under this recent round of funding for Maine's LIP are to: * purchase conservation easements to permanently protect habitat on private lands in twenty Beginning with Habitat Focus Areas, and protect and restore habitat for the endangered Furbish lousewort along the St. John River in northern Maine.A Steering Committee comprised of representatives from both governmental and non-governmental organizations assists MDIFW and MNAP in developing and implementing LIP. Since its inception in 2004, the Program has allocated grants totaling more than $550,000 for the protection of over 2,500 acres of important habitat for rare, threatened and endangered species on six projects representing diverse habitats in southern, western, central, and mid-coast Maine. The Landowner Incentive Program is administered by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and builds on the success of Beginning with Habitat, the state's broad-scale habitat conservation planning program. For more information on the State's Landowner Incentive Program, please visit: http://www.mainenaturalareas.org/docs/lip/. |
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