. Maine. Landowners should", "url": "https://northernwoodlands.org/knots_and_bolts/funds_available_for_wildlife_habitat_improvement", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "The Center for Northern Woodlands Education" } }
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Funds Available for Wildlife Habitat Improvement

Want to improve wildlife habitat on your land? Want help paying for those improvements? Then check out the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP), a cost-share program of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) of the United States Department of Agriculture, which helps landowners create and enhance wildlife habitat on their properties. Begun in 1996, it was reauthorized in the 2002 Farm Bill; since its inception, nearly 15,000 people across the country have enrolled over 2.3 million acres. Except in a few instances, there are no limits on acres enrolled or dollars spent.

To get started, you’ll need to file an application, either from your local NRCS office or click here (click on “Register” to open a USDA account and have access to a WHIP application, CCC-1200). Applications are scored based on their goals and feasibility.

Once your property is enrolled, NRCS district conservationists and state agencies will work with you to design a wildlife habitat development plan with recommended practices (which they’ll help you implement), timelines for completion, and cost-share schedules. Contracts generally last 5 to 10 years; once completed and certified, NRCS authorizes payment, up to 75 percent, for practices such as establishing or improving riparian forest buffers to stabilizing stream channels, restoring and managing declining or degraded habitats, and improving habitat for a specific species of wildlife. They generally do not compensate landowners for ponds, wetland enhancements, access roads, food plots and non-native plantings, timber stand improvement, harvesting mature, late-successional forests, or for preexisting practices.

To find out more, contact your local NRCS office. You’ll find them in the phone book, under United States Government – Agriculture Department. Here’s a state by state summary of WHIP:

New York. The WHIP program emphasizes creating, managing, and protecting grassland and riparian habitats. To apply, contact your local service center. More information on New York’s WHIP program can be found at www.ny.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/programs/whip1.html.

Vermont. The practices emphasized are restoring and/or managing riparian areas, wetlands, grasslands, early successional habitat and woodlands, rare natural communities and state-significant habitats such as deer wintering areas. To apply, contact one of the two WHIP habitat specialists: Mary Beth Adler at (802) 885-8836 or Dave Adams at (802) 879-2330, or contact NRCS field office personnel at your local USDA Service Center.

New Hampshire. WHIP encourages enhancing or restoring significant wildlife and fisheries habitat for rare, threatened, or endangered species. Interested landowners should contact their local NRCS office. For more information, contact NRCS Program Manager Jeff White at (603) 868-7581 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Maine. Landowners should focus on restoring habitat for Atlantic salmon or brook trout, and critical habitat for other important fish and wildlife species. To enroll, contact the main USDA office in Bangor at (207) 990-9100 ext. 3.

Massachusetts. NRCS emphasizes projects that focus on the restoration and management of early successional habitat, freshwater wetlands, riparian areas, xeric forests, salt marshes, and aquatic ecosystems. Contact your local NRCS office.

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