Brent Rudolph’s Post

Pheasants Forever and Blue Forest Launch First-of-its-Kind Watershed Resilience Bond Supporting Working Lands in Southern Oregon and Northeastern California Pheasants Forever and Blue Forest are excited to announce the launch of the Southern Oregon-Northeastern California I Watershed Resilience Bond (SONEC I WRB). The SONEC I WRB will finance landscape-scale conservation across privately owned working lands, marking the first financial product from non-profit conservation finance organization Blue Forest that focuses on improving watershed resilience across property boundaries.   The WRB, co-developed by Blue Forest and Pheasants Forever, is an innovative financing mechanism that taps into private capital to finance restoration projects, increasing the watershed’s resilience to fire and other disturbances, improve wildlife habitat, and bolster the community and local economy. While the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) provides funding to private landowners to implement conservation projects, these programs require landowners to pay upfront costs with a portion to be reimbursed by NRCS after the completion of work. Read the full story at https://lnkd.in/gKE9z2r6 w/ Blue Forest

The Eel River is one of California's largest and wildest rivers, but past and current land and water use practices have led to a substantial decline in salmon and steelhead populations in the Eel River. Today, we released a report that will guide holistic restoration and recovery in the watershed. 👉 https://lnkd.in/gHebz9T6 What does the report say? The Eel River Watershed Restoration and Conservation Plan pulls together the best available scientific information to plan for native fish recovery, riparian corridor restoration, and conservation across the watershed. It recommends key recovery actions and an action prioritization framework across the seven major sub-watersheds of the Eel River watershed. The Plan also proposes a management approach that is informed by a monitoring and assessment framework, all of which is built from existing restoration and monitoring efforts. The Plan concludes with a menu of recommendations and next steps needed to get this important work off the ground. Why does this report matter? Salmon and steelhead populations within the Eel River were once incredibly abundant, with combined runs reaching nearly a million adults in good years. The drastic reduction in salmon, steelhead, and Pacific lamprey abundance has impacted communities in the north coast region by reducing access to food, cultural resources, and economic opportunity. This report is the first of its kind to outline restoration and conservation actions for the entire watershed. What's next now that we have this report? The plan is the first step in creating and implementing a new watershed-wide restoration and conservation program. The Eel River Watershed Restoration and Conservation Program is intended to serve as an administrative body that will guide and oversee restoration and conservation in the Eel River Watershed for the foreseeable future.

Ducks Unlimited receives 1 Million in support of expanding wetland mitigation offsets programs. - see press release below. The conservation threats to waterfowl are immense. It's a big reason DU is focused on maintaining and expanding upon our traditional ways putting habitat on the ground (philanthropic support leveraged towards state and federal grants), while also nurturing additive conservation finance to get more habitat on the ground. DU is proud to be partnering again with the Richard King Mellon Foundation in support of wetland conservation by establishing wetland mitigation offsets in underserved landscapes in urban coastal and inland settings. Wetland protections in the US generally require more wetland habitats to be offset than developed under a permit. The Multi-user banking approaches DU will establish with this support offer ability to pool financial resources from permitees and develop larger wetland restoration projects than if each development had to provide their own offset. Through support from RKMF - DU is working in key landscapes where technical expertise or capital barriers have prevented establishment of multi-user mitigation options. The programs supported were selected based on their ability to protect and restore 1,000 acres within the support term, and become financially self sufficient programs to get more habitat on the ground on a continued basis. Read more here:

The U.S. House of Representatives Introduces the North American Grasslands Conservation Act The North American Grasslands Conservation Act has been introduced in the House of Representatives by U.S. Representatives Nancy Mace (R – S.C.), Sharice Davids (D – Kan.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R – Penn.) and Mike Thompson (D – Calif.). Once passed, the legislation will be one of the most significant steps for grassland conservation efforts in the 21st century. More than 70 percent of America’s tallgrass, mixed grass, and shortgrass prairies have vanished, followed by the precipitous decline of grassland bird populations – more than 40 percent since 1966. Additionally, grazing lands that have sustained generations of ranchers are dwindling and species from bobwhite quail and pheasants to monarch butterflies and elk to are struggling to navigate landscapes they used to call home. The Grasslands Act would kickstart the voluntary protection and restoration of grasslands and sagebrush shrub-steppe ecosystems – and the livelihoods and wildlife dependent upon them. Functionally, the legislation is modeled after the successful North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) and would create a landowner-driven, voluntary, incentive-based program to conserve America’s critically imperiled grasslands. There’s urgency to maintain these grassland biomes for agriculture, wildlife habitat, carbon sequestration and for future generations while supporting ranchers, farmers, Tribal Nations, sportsmen and women and rural communities. Read the full story at https://lnkd.in/gxxDy53z

Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission / SMB Foundation presented a good workshop this afternoon to begin the process of the 2025 Planning. I belive it was well run and fairly well attended. However, I believe that the planning process and comment period is too soon after the discussion today. Comments need to be received by March 1, 2024. That is just a few days away. Also, there was a last minute effort, poorly concealed, to put forward public comments regarding use of industrial equipment for a proposal to modify a huge area of Ballona Wetlands and also Ballona Creek that will adversely impact the wildlife and habitat stability of the Ballona Wetlands Protected Area by people that favor heavy equipment use and a totally inappropriate program design that is full of holes and does nothing to protect the area from anything except expenditures of public money to benefit no animals, nor protect from Tsunami or flood control. This is put forward by the agency that already does a poor job of protecting the Wetlands that is is sworn to do for the people of the State of California. Fish and Wildlife. A better plan is to trash that plan, leave the wetlands intact, acquire additional lands for wetland protection, and also build structures off shore to a maximum depth of about 90 ft. that will provide additional habitat, hatchery and replace the lost eelgrass and other marine organisms that are responsible for biosphere that also make oxygen and fix carbon. This can be done in such a way that the economic expansion can be paced with the biosphere development. It is better management and is a restoration of lost habitat rather than a disruption. It is ecologically science based rather than engineering based. Biosphere expanded by investment to create economic return as well as jobs over the long term for the vast underemployed and well educated products of Los Angeles County's great educational system. Why just spend money to help public employee retirement programs? I am sure SMBRC and SMB Foundation will take a good look at doing things a better way. There are already 877,000 jobs associated with the various entertainment, harvest, transportation, and recreational activities associated with LA County Beaches and Harbors. This data is from LA County Beaches and Harbors Commission. Their economist did the study which was published in the LA Times and The Argonaught. If we just doubled that employment in 10 years that would be a big improvement in the tax base for the all the cities, the County of Los Angeles, and the State of California. What makes more sense to you? BTW after many years of work, Ringe Dam will be removed. I wrote and worked hard to achive that with some of the people that were at todays's online meeting. We can win a few. In time. That took 40 years to remove the dambed dam. That 150 ft. wall stopped Steelhead Trout from reaching about 20 miles of habitat up stream since 1923. That is 101 years and counting. 💚

Wetland restoration work is taking place across the New Forest this summer. You’ll still be able to use the Forest for walking or riding. However, there may be some temporary interruption to footpaths while work is taking place. The New Forest has some of the most internationally-important wetlands in Europe, and is home to 75% of the remaining valley mires (large, peat-based wetlands formed in valley bottoms) in north-western Europe. Since 2010 the HLS scheme has delivered dozens of projects across the New Forest, totaling 20 miles of restoration to watercourses and approximately 5,000 hectares (more than 7,000 football pitches) of sites of high quality wetland habitats being improved and protected within the New Forest SSSI. The restorations, led by Forestry England, are improving habitats for rare wildlife, protecting streams and mires from further erosion, helping to manage flood risk and increasing resilience to drought. Are you affected? Here's what's happening, and where: https://lnkd.in/ekWJuHCD #NewForest #NationalParks #Wetlands Forestry England

On October 23, the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) announced $1.5 billion of funding awards through its Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP). The RCPP uses a public-private partnership model to deliver voluntary, incentive-based conservation in ways that neither NRCS nor partners could do on their own. This year’s awards are at an unprecedented level, with $300 million being available through a traditional Farm Bill model and a staggering $1.2 billion provided by the Inflation Reduction Act for climate-smart activities. Many, if not all, of the projects will improve wildlife habitat and water quality in one way or another, but hunters and anglers should be particularly excited about those projects led by TRCP partners. Of the 92 awarded projects this year, 16 are led by TRCP partners or their state-level affiliates, and these alone add up to over $275 million of conservation work. Hunters and anglers should expect serious benefits from these projects over the next several years and beyond. https://lnkd.in/g99UpFCe

A few of our teammates are based in the southern states that will be affected by this recently announced slate of conservation grants for longleaf pine. We love to see it. 🌲 🌲 🌲 "The longleaf pine ecosystem is one of the most biodiverse in the world, and supported projects are expected to establish more than 70,000 acres of longleaf pine habitat through plantings and complete prescribed burnings on an additional 430,000 acres throughout Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas. Projects will also increase longleaf seedling capacity and assist populations of at-risk wildlife including the gopher tortoise, the red-cockaded woodpecker, and the eastern indigo snake." https://lnkd.in/ehKchmib

Chearsley Wetland: A Model of Successful Partnership and Habitat Restoration We are pleased to mark the two-year anniversary of the Chearsley Wetland project, where 17 hectares of floodplain grassland have been expertly transformed into a thriving wetland ecosystem. This initiative is a testament to the power of collaboration, bringing together the RTCT, Freshwater Habitats Trust, Environment Agency, and organic farmer Rose Dale. Hilary Phillips, RTCT’s senior project officer, reflects on the project’s success: "Seeing how quickly the land has recovered...gives me hope that we can help to restore nature across our depleted landscapes." Thanks to the collective efforts, the site now supports a diverse range of wildlife, including dragonflies, herons, and the rare great egret. The Chearsley Wetland is a shining example of how effective partnership working can lead to significant environmental gains. Read more: https://lnkd.in/ePhgMMsz #WetlandRestoration #Conservation #Partnership #RiverThame #SustainableFarming

Good article talking about partnering with farmers to protect land. Particularly relavent in Solano these days!