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| © David Govatski |
On February 1, 2010, President Obama made public his budget request for fiscal year (FY) 2011 appropriations for the Department of the Interior, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS). Congress will begin hearings on the president’s budget in the next weeks. Included in the President’s budget request is $6,000,000 in funding to acquire land in the Connecticut River Watershed for the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge. This is among the highest proposed funding levels in the Department of the Interior budget, second nationally only to the Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Area.
This year’s request will seek funding to protect land in the Nulhegan Basin Division in Vermont, the Salmon River Division in Connecticut, The Pondicherry and Mohawk River Divisions in New Hampshire and the Fort River and Westfield Divisions in Massachusetts. If we are successful in our requested level $6M in funding it would allow the refuge to acquire over 2,200 acres in the four states. We have a strong and unified coalition backing us on this request, greatly increasing our chances of successfully negotiating the congressional budget. Audubon Connecticut’s Director of Bird Conservation is the chairman of the Friends of the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge and played a key role in assembling an impressive coalition of supporting organizations, which includes:
Audubon Connecticut, Audubon Vermont, the National Wildlife Refuge Association, The Trust for Public Land, The Nature Conservancy, the Appalachian Mountain Club, the Friends of the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge, the Connecticut River Watershed Council, the Connecticut River Joint Commissions of New Hampshire and Vermont, the Massachusetts Audubon Society, the Connecticut Audubon Society, New Hampshire Audubon, The Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, Rivers Alliance of Connecticut, The Connecticut Ornithological Association, The Sierra Club Connecticut Chapter, the Friends of Pondicherry, the Hartford Audubon Society, the Highstead Foundation, the Mattabeseck Audubon Society; the Menunkatuck Audubon Society, the Potapaug Audubon Society, the Northeast Kingdom Audubon Society, the Farmington River Watershed Association, the Tidewater Institute, the Middletown (CT) Conservation Commission; A Maromas Plan (AMP), the Middlesex Land Trust, the Meshomasic Hiking Club, the Southwest (CT) Conservation District, the New Haven Bird Club, the Conservation Commission of the City of Milford, Connecticut and many other groups.
Audubon Connecticut’s Director of Bird Conservation, Patrick Comins, is the chairman of the Friends of the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge. |
