The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, Inc (“the Endowment”) has published the 2019 Request for Proposals for the Healthy Watersheds Consortium Grant Program. The Healthy Watersheds Consortium Grant Program is a partnership that includes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Water’s Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and the Endowment. Up to $1.2 million is available for projects that accelerate strategic protection of healthy, freshwater ecosystems and their watersheds across the United States. The primary focus for applicants should be protection and stewardship of land in the watershed, rather than restoration of degraded habitats or projects with a strictly water quality improvement outcome.
Proposals should focus on three categories:
- Developing funding mechanisms, plans, or other strategies to implement large-scale watershed protection, source water protection, green infrastructure, or related landscape conservation objectives;
- Building the sustainable organizational infrastructure, social support, and long-term funding commitments necessary to implement large-scale protection of healthy watersheds; and
- Supporting innovative or catalytic projects that may accelerate funding for or implementation of watershed protection efforts, or broadly advance this field of practice.
View the Request for Proposals including eligibility criteria and other information on the Endowment’s Healthy Watershed Consortium Grant program website. Source water protection is a priority area for the Initiative, which offers funding to safeguard healthy sources of drinking water.
“Protecting healthy watersheds should be a top priority for everyone,” said Peter Stangel, the Endowment’s Chief Operating Officer. “Healthy watersheds provide clean water for drinking, habitat for fish and wildlife, recreational opportunities for people, and are the basis for many rural economies. This program provides funding to protect and sustain these resources…[and] to enhance collaboration among the many groups that will benefit from protected watersheds, such as drinking water and storm water, wildlife and fisheries, land conservation, and forestry and working lands.”
To lean more register for the Healthy Watershed Consortium Grant Program Information Session being held on Wednesday, October 24, at 2:00 pm. Eastern. Learn more about the program and gain tips on navigating through the application.