Conservation Briefs is a compilation of short news stories of interest to Outdoor News Bulletin readers. The stories cover a number of issues that have developed in the past month or provide updates on issues that were featured in previous ONB editions. Each story includes links to online resources for more details on each topic.

This Month:

Administration Unveils FY2016 Budget Request

Forest Service Releases Final Planning Framework

Study Shows Impact of NRCS Migratory Bird Habitat Initiative

Administration Unveils FY2016 Budget Request

On February 2, the Obama Administration released its budget request for fiscal year 2016 outlining its funding and policy priorities for the next year. The budget proposes to fund the Department of the Interior, at $13.2 billion including $1.2 billion each for the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Geological Survey, $3 billion for the National Park Service, and $1.6 billion for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In addition, the federal budget proposes fully funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund at $900 million recommending that it become fully mandatory spending by 2017. DOI is also emphasizing landscape restoration and includes $78 million to protect and restore the western sage steppe landscape as well as $1.1 billion across the Department in research and development for climate change management and adaptation. Detailed budget information for the Department of the Interior can be found here.

Proposed funding for the Department of Agriculture is $25 billion in discretionary funding and $123 billion in mandatory spending (crop insurance, commodity and trade programs, many conservation programs, etc.). The budget proposes $4.94 billion for the Forest Service, which includes an overhaul of how the federal government budgets for wildfires by using disaster funds rather than agency budgets. In addition, it recommends funding the Integrated Resource Restoration Program at $822 million for on-the-ground restoration in the National Forests and proposes $60 million for the the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program for landscape scale restoration. The proposed budget recommends $5.8 billion for Farm Bill conservation programs, but cuts two Farm Bill conservation programs that have discretionary spending levels (see related article).

The Administration's budget is the first step in the long annual appropriations process and leaders in Congress have already spoken against the President's budget suggesting that most of the provisions will not be enacted. However, the spending levels and policy priorities included within the budget set a marker for negotiations on many of these issues for the coming year.

Forest Service Releases Final Planning Framework

In late January, the U.S. Forest Service released the final guidance documents to implement the agency's land management planning framework within the National Forest System. Land management plans guide how the 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands are managed. In 2012, the agency released a planning rule recommending changes to the land management planning process. The overall vision of the 2012 planning rule was "to protect and restore national forests and grasslands for the benefit of communities, natural resources and the environment. The Agency's intent is to ensure an adaptive land management planning process that is inclusive, efficient, collaborative and science-based to promote healthy, resilient, diverse and productive national forests and grasslands." The agency received more than 16,000 comments to the proposed directives and from a Federal Advisory Committee (FACA Committee) established by the Secretary of Agriculture. The final directive is available on the Forest Service website.

Study Shows Impact of NRCS Migratory Bird Habitat Initiative

A recently released study by Mississippi State University quantifies the impacts of the Natural Resources Conservation Service's (NRCS) Migratory Bird Habitat Initiative (MBHI) that was created after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The initiative directed $40 million to create or enhance habitat for migratory birds as an alternative to impacted coastal ecosystems. The conservation practices were implemented on 470,000 acres in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas. The report findings show that rice fields that were flooded early through MBHI held an average of 15 migratory birds per acre, compared to two birds per acre on rice fields not flooded. In addition, flooded catfish ponds had 40 different species of ducks, shorebirds and waterbirds visiting them and there were seven times more birds found on the early flooded ponds. The study also found that MBHI-managed habitats provided up to 28 percent of the winter waterfowl food energy needed in the Mississippi Delta and up to 25 percent needed in southwestern Louisiana. The MBHI is now retired but served as one of NRCS' Landscape Initiatives, the temporary, targeted conservation efforts that address specific particular conservation needs in key regions.