Continue a long-standing relationship between the rainwater basin joint venture and the nebraska community foundation

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Region 6 awarded $150,000 to the Nebraska Community Foundation through the Migratory Bird Joint Ventures program (CFDA 15.637) effective August 1, 2025, with a completion date of September 30, 2029. This Cooperative Agreement continues a long-standing partnership between the Rainwater Basin Joint Venture (RWBJV) and the Nebraska Community Foundation to advance habitat conservation objectives. The foundation will leverage its financial management expertise and negotiated indirect cost rate of 1.2% to maximize the allocation of federal funding toward on-the-ground conservation delivery. The partnership will implement six core elements of the RWBJV Implementation Plan: coordination and communication, joint venture administration, biological planning, conservation design, implementation, and project evaluation. This phased, multi-year approach ensures adaptive management capabilities that allow conservation delivery refinement based on best available science.

The award will support habitat restoration and enhancement across Nebraska, with primary focus on restoring thousands of acres of playa wetlands on private lands and associated National Wildlife Refuge System properties. These restoration activities will provide migratory waterfowl habitat while generating ancillary benefits including aquifer recharge of millions of gallons of water, in-stream flows for endangered species protection, drinking water supply for Nebraska residents, and sustainable irrigation support for the state's agricultural economy. The cooperative agreement mechanism enables USFWS to coordinate resources across multiple divisions to achieve Joint Venture Management Board priorities and maximize conservation outcomes through leveraged federal, state, and local partner investments.

This collaboration will utilize financial support from U.S. Fish and wildlife service migratory birds and other agency divisions. The foundations low negotiated indirect cost rate agreement (1.2%) maximizes the amount of U.S. Fish and wildlife service funding that the partnership can use to improve delivery efficiency and maximize on-the-ground project development. The foundations financial skills ensure the partnership can achieve habitat objectives outlined in the rwbjv implementation plan and annual plan of operations. The partnerships implementation plan has six elements that includes: coordination communication, JV administration, biological planning, conservation design, implementation, and project evaluation. Implementing these elements ensures a feedback loop where conservation delivery can be refined, and the best science can be used to guide federal, state, and local partner investments to maximize outcomes. This project will be incremental to allow flexibility and ensure joint venture management board priorities outlined in the annual plan of operations can be achieved through multi-year projects as defined in the agreement. This agreement will provide the mechanism to leverage U.S. Fish and wildlife resources form across different divisions to improve habitat delivery on private lands and the associated public lands managed by the U.S. Fish and wildlife service as part of the national wildlife refuge system. Restoration of thousands of acres of playa wetlands will maximize habitat for wetland dependent migratory waterfowl while also recharging millions of gallons of water to the underlying aquifer providing in-stream flow benefits for endangered species, drinking water for nebraska residents, and sustainable irrigation to support nebraskas irrigated agriculture economy. Improving hundreds of thousands of acres of grassland habitat through mechanical removal of eastern red cedar and promotion of prescribed burning will improve forage production, reduce fuel loads, minimize the catastrophic impacts of wildfire, and support economically viable ranching operations. To ensure effective operations (JV administration),funding will be provided to support office management, overhead, and grant development and administration. NCF staff will provide the capacity to support JV operations and management. Geographical information system data acquisition and analysis will be completed through funding in this agreement. This allows decision support tools to be developed as part of biological planning and conservation design elements. These tools are used by the partners to deliver thousands of acres of habitat through federal, state, and local funding sources. Communication and coordination element will support outreach to landowners and others about the programmatic opportunities and the benefits of conservation activities to both the farm and ranch operation and species that rely on this habitat. Evaluation elements will focus on monitoring groundwater recharge, improved water quality, as well as changes in forage production from and grassland nesting bird density. This information will help inform the messaging is part of the communication element. This project will not be duplicative as IT is tied to implementation of a recently awarded regional conservation partnership program to support grassland conservation. The funds in this agreement will be focused on supporting staff implementing and evaluating the outcomes of the regional conservation partnership program projects.