Improved Gulf Hypoxia Planning Tool

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), Midwest Region, intends to issue an amended Single Source Cooperative Agreement Award without competition to The Conservation Fund (TCF) for a project selected by the Steering Committee of the Eastern Tallgrass Prairie and Big Rivers Landscape Conservation Cooperative (ETPBR LCC). Landscape scale planning tools focus conservation priorities through a series of region-specific lenses. These tools include: CHAT; SECAS; Gulf Hypoxia Initiative - Precision Conservation Blueprint v1.5; and landscape designs developed by the Great Plains LCC and Gulf Coast Prairie LCC. Discussions with industry, agency and organizational leaders across the mid-continent suggest that the time is ripe for opening a dialogue about how to bridge the planning between the west and east to find the appropriate stakeholder-driven set of mid-continent connections for a network of lands and waters. The recipient will assist staff from multiple LCCs and other interested entities in setting up the products and tools to support stakeholders as they explore and develop the vision of a mid-continent conservation adaptation strategy.