Western Alaska Landscape Conservation Cooperative Coastal Systems FY17

The following is a request for proposals addressing the needs of the priority specific near-term needs listed below. Funding will likely begin September 2017 and there should be no expectation that additional funding from the Western Alaska LCC will be provided in future years for the proposed project. The Western Alaska Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) is a self-directed partnership governed by a Steering Committee. The Steering Committee includes representatives from 14 State, Federal and Tribal organizations. It is one of 5 LCCs in Alaska and one of 22 in North America. Our mission is to promote coordination, dissemination and development of applied science to inform landscape level conservation, including terrestrial-marine linkages in the face of a changing climate and related stressors. Congress provides seed funding for our LCC through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Service administers these funds through financial assistance on a competitive basis for projects, studies, and events that advance the scientific and public communityâ¿¿s understanding of large-scale changes in landscape characteristics and the impacts of these changes on important species. This funding announcement is part of our Coastal Systems focus for FY16 and FY17. The project sponsored in this announcement will build from a series of Coastal Resilience and Adaptation workshops that were conducted in Nome, Unalaska, King Salmon and Kotzebue in 2016 to organize an effort to develop adaptation strategies and recommendations for the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region. While future funding of the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives is uncertain, there is significant interest by the partners and by the USFWS to see this project implemented.