December 2019

The Wildlife Management Institute (supported by a Multi-State Conservation Grant) provides you with this quarterly snapshot of the excise tax collections to help you understand the health of American System of Conservation Funding. This system of funding was established in the 1930s and expanded and perfected over the next 40+ years. This reliable source of annual funding for state fish and wildlife agencies represents a unique partnership between the agencies and the hunting, shooting sports, angling, and boating industries. In rough numbers, these excise tax deposits made by the partner industries represent about half of the state fish and wildlife agencies’ annual budget. Therefore, it is imperative to conservation that agencies (from the Commissioners down to the field biologists) understand the industry trends and work with these industries to ensure a strong income flow going forward.

The ecological benefits of rivers and riparian lands are well researched and recognized by conservationists. The potential risks of flood-related damage to people and infrastructure in these areas, especially under some climate change scenarios, make it crucial for land managers to be able to identify the areas where river related processes occur. There are currently several methods land managers use to delineate river and floodplain areas. Most methods incorporate data that can be time intensive to acquire or require user input.

When the Department of the Interior (DOI) directed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to terminate staff support and funding for Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) in 2017, most of the 22 LCCs across North America disbanded. In Alaska, four of the five LCCs bucked this trend. These resilient partnerships, with 49 different entities serving at the leadership level on steering committees and another 100+ project partners, have continued their collaborative efforts. Between 2011 and today, Alaska’s LCCs leveraged substantial public funding (averaging 2:1 during their first five years alone) and completed dozens of science, planning, and communication projects with the aim of adapting to climate change and other large landscape-scale stressors. With ongoing support from the Wildlife Management Institute (WMI) and the Alaska Conservation Foundation (ACF), these partnerships continue to develop scientific information and advance conservation across hundreds of millions of acres in Alaska, Canada, and the Pacific Northwest.