National Bobwhite and Grassland initiative foundation
The National Bobwhite and Grassland Initiative (NBGI) based at Clemson University, is thrilled to announce two awards of $25 million through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) administered by the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. These funds.will be managed by the NBGI Foundation and are set to revolutionize conservation efforts in Missouri, Ohio, Georgia, and Mississippi by streamlining access to voluntary conservation payments for landowners and producers.
The awarded funds will be used to promote native vegetation on working lands, specifically targeting the mitigation of climate change through grassland bird conservation. The broad team of partners, led by each state’s wildlife agency, includes those who can help reach historically underserved communities. This remarkable achievement not only reinforces the vision of NBGI’s Habitat Management Service Center, a centralized administrative hub to connect public funds to the private sector, but it underscores the importance of measuring natural resource benefits through the partnership’s Coordinated Implementation Program.
As a component of these projects, the Foundation will be allocating resources for research through Clemson University and supporting conservation delivery positions. Research will help assess bobwhite and grassland bird population responses, learn what techniques help drive landowner participation, and understand social and economic values and benefits. The Foundation and their partners will recruit talented and motivated field personnel tasked with working with landowners and producers to install and maintain conservation practices. Other professionals will focus on coordination and communication across the diverse partnership.
For nearly three decades, the NBGI, supported by its new Foundation, have rallied a 25-state partnership including state and federal agencies, universities, conservation non-profits, and other conservation partners together to change how people use and view the land. The habitat transformation from those efforts will generate many societal benefits including increased populations of bobwhite and grassland birds, soil health, water quality, and carbon sequestration, among others. Stay tuned at nbgi.org as the partnership embarks on this transformative journey toward landscape-changing conservation.
Keep up to date with ongoing developments by following us on your favorite social media platforms. #NBGIFoundation #ConservationInitiative #RCPPFunding #LandscapeConservation #GrasslandBirdConservation
You may help restore habitat for many species.
Following a half-century of decline, landscape-scale restoration of bobwhite and grassland bird habitats and populations across their range will require determined and sustained conservation leadership, priority, funding and focus for decades to come.
Simple Steps That Will Make a Big Difference
Native Grass and Forbs!
Understand how native warm season grasses and forbs grow. Be patient-it takes much longer to establish a stand of native warm season grass than it takes to establish a stand of cool season grasses.
Restore Habitat- Restore Diminishing Species
Huntable populations of bobwhites can be found in, or restored to, the pine forests of the Southeast, mixed forest and agricultural landscapes of the Midwest, and rangelands of Texas and Oklahoma, among nearly all other places within their original geographic range, so long as the appropriate habitat components are sustained or restored and urban-suburban encroachment on these habitats is not a factor.
Prescribed Fire
The bobwhite quail was first deemed the ‘fire bird” by Herbert Stoddard, author of the 1931 classic; The Bobwhite Quail: Its Habits, Preservation, and Increase. The bobwhite earned this nickname due to its positive response to fire.
You Can Help
1. First, spread the word about NBGI by sharing this website with friends and acquaintances who care about bobwhites and other grassland species being wiped out by destruction of their habitat. 2. NBGI is an organized effort by the states for the states, so contact your state’s Quail Coordinator to tell them you support their efforts to restore quail to America’s landscape and ask them how you can help. 3. Check to see if your state offers a specialty license plate that supports quail/wildlife management. 4. Ask your state forestry commission how they are working with the state’s wildlife biologists to manage state forests in a way that will help recover wild quail populations.
Approximately 85% Wild Quail Populations have diminished since the 1970's
Don’t fly Away!
It’s Time To Make A Change.
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