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alright thanks for your patience folks we've got a great crowd on the phone today so hopefully you all enjoy this webinar we are going to be covering farm bill conservation program collaboration between the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the US Department of Agriculture did a farm bill as many of you already know it's a single largest source of land conservation in the country so understanding the various programs offered through USDA's Farm Service Agency as well as the Natural Resources Conservation Service can maximize Fish and Wildlife benefit so today's webinar will be recorded and posted online on restoring America's estuaries YouTube channel after it'll be posted early next week and that a link to that recording will also be sent out to all of the registrants all attendees have been placed in listen-only mode and we'll be using the question box in the side panel down at the kind of the bottom half of that side panel to ask any questions so don't try to use your telephone or raise your hand through the panel just type those any questions you have in the questions box and we'll get to them at the end of this into the webinar so just so you all can put a face with the folks on the phone today I'm Lee ha bagger and I'm the external affairs manager for restore America's estuaries I'll be your moderator for today's webinar our presenter is Edie Christopher a Fish and Wildlife Service farm conservation programs biologist he's been with the Fish and Wildlife Service for seven years and has worked on the farm bill conservation programs there for about two years but prior to that he worked on farm bill conservation programs for over a decade with the North Carolina Forest Service we're thrilled have him on the webinar today he's a wealth of information and so he will hopefully be able to offer some insights on ways that we can fully utilize the available farm bill conservation programs so before we dive into the farm bills conservation program just want to provide a little bit of background on restoring America's estuaries if anybody is not familiar with us we are a 501c3 nonprofit that leads to national alliance ten community-based organizations dedicated to the protection and restoration of bays and estuaries as essential resources for our nation we also provide a unified voice at the nation's capital to further prioritize these important habitats so you can check out more at our website down at the bottom of that screen there ww estuaries org and a quick plug about our 2018 national summit will be hosting the ninth annual national summit in December 2018 out in Long Beach California and we are partnering with the coastal states organization this year we're very excited about that these biennial summits are one of the largest gatherings of coastal and restoration scientists practitioners policy analysts and managers you can check out more information again on our website wwsz org backslash summit or feel free to contact me if you have any questions my email will be at the end of this presentation so now I'll go ahead and turn it over to Ed and let him tell you all a little bit more about himself and start in on the presentation but again one quick reminder we'll be using the questions box in your side panel to submit any questions we'll cover as many questions as time allows at the end of the presentation please don't try to unmute yourself on the telephone or raise your hand and within the go-to webinar platform just simply type your question into the question box and I'll keep a running list and pass those along to Edie so you can answer them at the end of the presentation all right so now we are all set to turn things over to Edie so I will pass the controls over to him and if you want to unmute yourself and then dive on in alright hey I don't know if everybody can hear me but I'm good day to you yes my name's ed Christopher and I'm here with the US Fish & Wildlife Service in the National Wildlife Refuge System located in our headquarters office in Falls Church Virginia and I'm excited to talk with everybody today about the various programs offered by USDA's farm conservation programs as well as how it is the US Fish and Wildlife Service partners with USDA and maximizing conservation benefits offered by the various programs themselves and as for anything else to add about myself Lee thank you did a fantastic job so with that being said let's get started so the farm bill the 2014 farm bill is very much like a like a Swiss Army knife as it says here in this slide and out of all the various functions that the farm bill offers the one that were most concerned about and interested in for our purposes today is the conservation title title two of the farm bill and the farm bill is considered one of the most important tools enacted by Congress for conserving habitat on private lands and the they put the the conservation I would say in four main areas which are considered working lands programs the Conservation Reserve Program conservation easements and partnerships and so these programs are really designed to protect agriculture lands of working lands across the United States but also the efforts there to protect act risk species on the working lands and to provide technical and to private landowners so they can enact these practices to not only protect their livelihood but also the species that reside on their property so on February 7th and 2014 the the latest rendition of the farm bill was was enacted by Congress to benefit agricultural producers in the environment so as I mentioned earlier it's really targeted for private lands and private lands make up almost seventy percent in the continuous United States and out of that roughly 900 million acres are in production and farm in our ranch lands and 300 million acres of that are roughly made up and non industrial private forest land primarily in the southeastern part of the United States so why is it that the US Fish and Wildlife Service is interested and should should we all be interested in USDA farm bill and it has to do with the allocation it is by far the largest game in town when it comes to private lands conservation for North America it has allocated twenty eight billion dollars through the life of the farm bill through twenty eight twenty eighteen and so for a comparison I'll just show you here last year's dollars was 5.3 billion for conservation so compare that to other US Fish and Wildlife Service programs and in the service year and what you'll see is the farm bill by far outweighs any sort of dollars that could be offered up for private landowners through the US Fish and Wildlife Service the highest amount there is you'll see on the graph is the pittman-robertson dollars which is barely eight hundred and fifty million dollars that's still a significant amount of money but looking at the graph you can see the 5.3 billion for just one year out of the life of the 2014 farm bill is substantially more so what is it that the US Fish and Wildlife Service does with respect to farm conservation programs so it's just myself on the Lee mentioned I'm the conservation biologist and then I have my supervisor who's the farm conservation coordinator so it's just the two of us that our full-time job is to pay attention to USDA's farm conservation programs and how it is that we can maximize the benefit across the landscape so part of our job is really to disseminate information on implementation of the program's to service field staff so they themselves can identify opportunities really to enhance fish and wildlife conservation goals but using the USDA programs to reach their goals and objectives also we provide technical assistance to USDA not only at the local and state level but also here at the national level to enhance Fish and Wildlife benefits for farm bill conservation programs and initiatives and really good examples of that and we'll talk about it more it's working lands for wildlife program for those of you that are familiar with that and then also the ongoing monarch conservation effort that's taking place in the central part of the country but also in Canada and Mexico in another aspect of what it is we do is that we coordinate service review and comment on USDA rules and policies and programs for for the farm bill so we're getting ready to come up with the 2018 reauthorization of the farm bill and so we're putting together a workgroup and identifying areas where we can improve conservation benefits offered through the myriad of programs that we'll discuss your shortly in last but not least we build an enhanced conservation collaboration among our partners and that's a big part of what we're doing here today in the Fish and Wildlife servus you're you know you're typically used to hearing about the refuge system or fish hatcheries or you know consultation for endangered species but if you're not aware the Fish and Wildlife Service does have a private land program programs I should say the the two of them are the partners for Fish & Wildlife Program and also the coastal program and what these two programs do they provide technical and financial assistance to landowners including Agra Doozers to help them assess access excuse me of resources available through farm bill as well as their own in particular programs that can be partnered with farm bill programs to maximize the conservation benefit on the people's property and here is a shameless plug we've recently developed a farm bill conservation programs brochure and most everything of what it is that we'll be discussing today on this webinar is can be found in this farm conservation programs for sure and the idea here is um for when the partners and coastal program biologists are out there with the landowners are our partners are out there discussing ways to conserve wetland lands you name it they have this in their back pocket that they could share with landowners and discuss maybe the programs that would be the best fit for them and which they took and then partner with and enhance again that large-scale conservation effort so with that we'll dive a little bit into the farm bill program now and then the programs themselves so there are two general types of voluntary conservation program buckets that I say offer to the farm bill and the one is the working lands program and and two are the easement programs and then there are two primary essential agencies in USDA that administer these programs one being the Farm Service Agency to FSA and the Natural Resources Conservation Service NRCS so as we go through this I just want to apologize in advance the alphabet soup that will occur with all the acronyms from the various program so FSA and NRCS is just the tip of the iceberg so here's a visual of how that looks in the buckets of the farm bill this is an every single program offer but these are the primary ones and I'll touch also on the healthy forest Reserve Program that's falling under that bottom one underneath NRCS which is the regional conservation partnership program but as you see here the bulk of the program's fall underneath NRCS but the FSA program the Conservation Reserve Program is a juggernaut across across this country and so it has the the primary program itself but there are also other aspects of it and a new one in the twenty thousand fourteen farm bill is the Conservation Reserve programs grasslands initiative and we'll talk about that here in a minute so we'll start out with FSA and FSA's Conservation Reserve Program this program is authorized budget of one point nine billion dollars again that there's the the b-word four billion and its goal is to retire you know these marginal agricultural lands to restore vegetation that improves soil by reducing erosion and by doing so improves the air quality as well as the the surface water quality and improves the habitat wildlife quality as well and part of what it is that the CRP does is you plant and maintain long-term resource covers to hedge against soil loss through erosion especially you know along steep slopes next to stream banks but also again on those marginal crop lands as well to be eligible to enroll in the Conservation Reserve Program you need to have owned and operated the land for at least twelve months prior to the application and once you do once you are enrolled the land has enrolled for up to ten to fifteen years there is no minimum acreage as indicates they're the only acreage limitation found in the 2014 farm bill is the twenty four million acre cap on CRP enrollment and this was new with this latest farm bill and previously in previous farm bill the cap was was much higher at one point it was close to thirty eight million acres was the allowable enrollment for CRP but through this farm bill the cap has been been stepped down and and is now as of this year a twenty four million acre cap so how do you enroll into the program there's periodic application announcements known as general signup and the general signup process is a competitive process so you would be possibly competing with your neighbors down the road to become enrolled into the program and the application process is Hedges significantly on EBI so there's another acronym and that what that stands for is the environmental benefits index so there are several of these EB is and I'll just list a few of them so they look at a score for example the wildlife factor score they look at the water quality benefits from reduced erosion runoff in leaching point source so that's on a scale from 1 to 100 obviously that the higher number you receive from these EB is the the greater chance that you will get to be enrolled another example of an EB I factor is the air quality benefits from reduced wind erosion as well so they rank them and those with the highest rank are the ones that are typically approved also in talking with the Natural Resources Conservation Service and FSA folks they also look at if they're the landowner the producer is already showing good faith and putting in installing conservation practices on their land they look at that as also a factor that they consider when considering enrolling and accepting an application other enrollment types are continuous sign up for certain approved conservation practices an example for that is what is known as CP 42 which is the pollinator habitat initiative or state acres for for wildlife enhancement known as safe but in certain states there's also a targeted effort called the Conservation Reserve enhancement program or Krept and these are targeted to watersheds that are needing extra help is the best way to put it from primarily soil erosion and runoff from from agricultural lands and so that is on a continuous basis that landowners can sign up for CREP so earlier I mentioned the CRP grasslands piece underneath the the Conservation Reserve Program which is new to the 2014 farm bill and but this is the working it's a working land aspect of the CRP which is typically a land retirement program and what it targets is environmentally sensitive agricultural lands and like some aspects of CRP that can CRP grasslands is a continuous signup but it's only accepted in batches and then ranked so there's periodic announcements by the Farm Service Agency for a sign-up period for CRP grasslands and once that signup periods clothes they take the applications and they send them gnash to the national office for ranking and allocation of acres throughout the country the contract if approved is between 14 to 15 years and one of the key pieces to CRP grasslands is that the land must be currently covered in grass and similar to the overarching CRP CRP grasslands has a 2 million acre cap - it's only a maximum of 2 million acres can be enrolled in the CRPD grasslands underneath the 2014 farm bill so and that 2 million acre cap is actually part of the 24 million acre cap for for the overall CRP program so just to give you an example of where we are on a national scale with with CRP as of June there is 23.5 million acres enrolled in in CRP and out of that there's roughly 2 million acres that are going to be expiring in other words their contracts are going to be coming to a conclusion and they are going to be coming out of CRP on October 1st so next week however there are already approximately 2 million acres already signed up and ready to go at the start of the new year and 800,000 acres of those are will be in CRP grasslands and roughly 900,000 acres will will fall back into the CRP program and primarily these are applications that word deferred from this past year so from fiscal year 17 they enrolled in the enrollment cap was was already being reached so what they did was defer these applicants to move to the fiscal year 18 so they kind of have a first-come first-serve basis for the start of this fiscal year so that was the the breadth of the FSA participation with with farm bill conservation programs for this presentation the next piece I want to cover is the NRCS conservation programs and similar as what we talked about earlier there's the working lands piece of it the easements and then there's a combination program that you see there at the bottom so we have the Environmental Quality incentives program there at the top equip the conservation stewardship program and then from the easement side of it we have the agriculture conservation easement program and that falls into two pieces which we'll talk about here which is the agricultural component as well as the wetland component and then there's the healthy forest reserve program that I mentioned earlier this program currently does not have any dedicated funding to it the funding that does receive comes from the program that's right below that in the combination program the regional conservation partnership program so again there's the litany of alphabet soup acronyms for you so the primary program the most people think about when it comes to NRCS and conservation programs is equipped and it has an authorized budget of 1.65 billion annually however please note that does not mean that it 1.65 goes 100 percent to what you would consider like conservation practices in the form of let's say you know prescribed fire our tree thinning or brush management the majority of the dollars here go to agricultural feeding operations lagoons things of that nature but roughly 5 percent maybe a little more it goes to the conservation practices that I previously mentioned so still a significant chunk of change on an annual basis roughly around 83 million dollars and so what this program does is that it provides technical and financial assistance to those eligible producers really to provide an incentive to help offset the cost of the conservation practices that are being employed on their property and what NRCS does is that they'll create a conservation activity plan to address the various land uses that wish to be addressed by that will hand owner and sometimes it is this can be done by NRCS district conservationist or soil conservationist but also they can hire a technical service provider that is an expert in that field and is listed on their website that can be selected by the landowner to come out there and perform a management plan for them to follow in the goal of the program relieves from the conservation side of it is really to enhance wildlife habitat on these working lands and forests the tribal agriculture excuse me agricultural producers and private non industrial private forest landowners are eligible for to apply for for equip and if they are accepted the agreement duration can be up to ten years unlike a CRP where you know there's the general sign-up and you know it comes in batches for example with CRP grasslands the equip the enrollment process is ongoing on there's there's no minimum acreage associated with the what can and can't be enrolled in the program and payments are made on for completed practices or activities identified in that contracts but they need to meet the NRCS standard so if a practice is implemented on the properties and the NRCS representative will go out there to a ensure that it was implemented and be ensure that it was implemented to the standards set forth in the in the conservation plan in the payment rates reach of these practices are set each fiscal year they vary by state and by conservation practices there's state technical committees that are in each of the 50 states and territories that work together to identify conservation practices that can be used for strategically targeting whether it be soil erosion wildlife habitat water quality and from that they take information from the previous years to come up with what is a satisfactory payment rate for so many to employ these practices so the other working lands program is the conservation stewardship program and this is the largest conservation program out of all the ones discussed today because it has over 70 million acres that are enrolled nationwide and on an annual basis there is a ten million acre cap on to what new acres can be a enrolled into the program and the goal here for CSP is really to address the priority resource concerns as we've been discussing soil water air quality and wildlife and unlike the other programs the the employed practices for the landscape and from that producer they need to improve upon existing conservation practices and undertake additional conservation enhancement activities and so you'll note that I italicize enhancement so if you're not familiar with it there's some several categories of enhancement activities and they are air quality animal enhancements such as wildlife and non wildlife energy plants such as pollinator and or beneficial insect habitat soil erosion soil quality water quality and water enhancements as well so if there is a producer or landowner out there that is employing good practices already on the land and they are willing to take it to the next levels the best way to say it then CSP is a good program to consider because as you can see there it covers a myriad of land types and also a myriad of applicant excuse me applicable eligibility for landowners so tribal AG producers and non industrial forest landowners but the big thing for them for those that are trying to enroll into this program that they need to be in compliance with the highly erodible land and wetland conservation and have current farm records on file with their local County FSA office and no there's no minimal acreage for those that are going to be enrolling into this program but the entire operation must be enrolled so it's a holistic operation it's it's whole farm if you want to put it that way so it might be that you're trying to address erosion one side of of the property but those practices if political elsewhere are applied else and well throughout the farm where we're political and for those that sign up for it it's a five year contract and landowners can rien to adopt additional conservation activities and so there's periodic enrollment announcements if not on a continuous basis so it's on a periodic basis that landowners interested producers can enroll into the CSP program and once enrolled payments are made to the landowner to maintain existing conservation based on operation type the number of resources concerned that have been addressed so you know the more that you address for example if you bundle if conservation enhancement activities are bundled let's say from a pasture grazing bundle or a forest bundle the you know the the more that that landowner is willing to accept and and take on from the conservation lens they have a potential for a higher payment and if they do that the payments to implement the addition or conservation activities are recognized you know a person or a legal entity may not receive more than $40,000 annually through CSP or $200,000 over the life of the 5-year contract so we're moving a little bit from the the working land side and going over into the easement piece of the this nrcs's buckets and that is agriculture conservation easement program or Aesop and so this is a new program in the 2014 farm bill and what this program did is that it replaces on WRP the wetland Reserve Program the grassland Reserve Program GRP and the farm ranch protection program FRPP so it undal those and they are housed underneath Aesop there's five hundred million dollars that are authorized for funding for this program and as I mentioned at the start of the presentation there's two easement buckets underneath a sip that's WR II and also the agricultural land easements one which is known as a le so applicant eligibility for wre its Indian tribes landowners and AG producers and for a le its Indian tribes AG producers and non industrial private forest owners or an IPF if you have heard that acronym before so what are the separate goals for each of these easement programs house underneath a sip so for WR e it is to restore protect enhanced farmed and converted or degraded wetlands whereas for a le it's to prevent conversion of working properly and grasslands pasture lands rangelands and there's the non industrial private forest land so ni PF so for the payments for the producers the wre there's 50 to 100 percent of the restoration cost and easement value depending upon that contract duration and for a le it's up to 75% of that easement value so we talked there about the contract duration so for wre you can have it for 30 years or a permanent or a 30 year contract for tribes whereas for a le you have a permanent easement or a maximum duration for allowable underneath state law for that easement to exist in enrollment into a SIPP is ongoing and it's reviewed and ranked in batches similar to what we were talking about earlier with CRP grasslands so the last one here the regional conservation partnership program our CPP is a unique again to the 2014 farm bill and the goal here is really to promote collaboration among NRCS producers landowners and other partners and really cobble together the financial might and will of various entities to make broad landscape conservation actions for the benefit of whether it's a critical habitat like the Chesapeake Bay for that benefit or for species or for a watershed and so how this works is that our CPP leverages non-federal funds from in its goals of at least one to one and it's provided approximately 1.2 billion dollars for the life of this farm bill so roughly every every fiscal year it has announcements for about two hundred fifty million dollars available for those that can enroll into the our CPP program and application process you look at three buckets one is at the national level is what it is this project doing is this at an at a national level is it at a state level state specific so is it's only for Iowa is this only for Virginia etc or there is it for a critical conservation area and what that means is this is these are areas that have been identified by the Secretary of Agriculture and I think in the 2014 Farm Bill there were eight eight concert critical conservation areas that are have targeted efforts for the restoration and enhancement of these locations I mentioned one earlier the example being the Chesapeake Bay so who can put in a proposal for our cpp well tribal governments states and local governments agriculture and forest associations water districts non-government organizations and educational institution note that I don't I didn't identify a private landowner private landowners can can benefit and participate by other means into the umbrella RCP PPP project in their area but they're not part of the the eligible applicant pool and requests for proposals are announced periodically as I mentioned and those entities that submit their proposals these are considered pre proposals and so these pre proposals are reviewed at the national level and if they are found to be providing the the greatest benefit and bringing the most partners to the table to get the greatest accomplishments on the ground then typically NRCS will respond to the primary applicant with a request for a full proposal and at that point in time that's where the US Fish and Wildlife Service can also come in and help because we can be your partner in these proposals we could be listed as a contributor we can provide an overall contribution to the conservation effort as in your and in the project however it's not a federal dollar for dollar match but rather again it's a contribution that the Fish and Wildlife Service is is providing to to meet that overall our cpp goal and its objectives so what are some of the land types covered from ours for this there's the cropland grassland pasture land and rangeland in the NI PF much like others in the next program here is the healthy forest reserve program one that I didn't mention because it has no dedicated funding but I I find it important just to be aware of because there is interest in it possibly for resurrecting it in the 2018 farm bill that and I'm a forester by trade so it's hard to delete this one so the goal of HF RP is is to enhance and protect non industrial forestland through through either the purchase of easements and in other financial assistance to the to the landowner it's available to tribes a non industrial private forest land and the way does the payments go out it's fifty two hundred percent of the restoration costs can be covered through the easement or seventy five percent to a hundred percent of easement value depending upon that contracts duration and so typically a ten year restoration agreement or thirty-year or potential permanent easement for certain conservation active actions and as you can see there with an additional thirty year contract for for the tribes so hf RP is only funded as i mentioned out of our cpp for now but again there's been conversations where they would the interest in that program has been discussed with with our partners that that we've been having these conversations with and so i wouldn't be surprised as hf RP came back with some dedicated funding but i guess time will tell will be wait and see so how is it that you can apply for these programs well if you visit this URL link you it'll take you to this below screenshot that you see here the united states and if you just click on that state it'll list the FSA and NRCS offices that are local to you and then it's as simple as picking up the phone or just walking into the office and and having that conversation with with your local FSA or NRCS official and just being put on a list for them to come out and visit your property and meet with you out there and discuss ways with which their conservation programs can be a benefit to you so those were the the NRCS and fs8 conservation programs but I want to talk a little bit more about now is how the US Fish and Wildlife Service and NRCS NFS a work together through collaborative conservation to to benefit wildlife and fish and wildlife in their habitats as I mentioned at the start of the the webinar I talked about the partners for official wildlife program and the coastal programs these two distinct programs provide conservation practices or easements where landowners might not meet NRCS eligibility or can enhance and expand conservation benefits offered by NRCS sent more and/or FSA should have put their their programs and a good example of that was I visited a site in West Virginia where the seat forestry agency was planting trees in the riparian zone it was a Conservation Reserve Program pasture lands it was they were retiring the land above it and the partners for Fish & Wildlife Program was installing fence to keep the cows out of the stream and out of the area where the trees were being planted so just a way to cobble together the various programs again to benefit the producer but also the the big benefit there is for the trout stream and then those that are you know enjoy the good trout fishery downstream as well and and this is really driven strategically at the local level we as I mentioned earlier we talked at the national level with some program leads with NRCS and FSA with from my office but where the rubber meets the road really is at the local level so the the conversations the meaningful conversations down there really um set the tone for what it is that we need to pursue and how it is we need to pursue it to address needs that we see in in farm bill conservation programs and part of that conversations happening as I talked about earlier with the 2018 reauthorization another way with which official wildlife service collaborates with with USDA is that we provide regulatory predictive ability for species in decline or listed our species listed is threatened and endangered and a primary mechanism is through the working lands for a Wildlife Program which we'll talk about here a second but also another example is providing consultation to FSA for the Gunnison sage-grouse and identifying conservation practices that would be beneficial for the producer and beneficial for the bird another one was for lesser prairie chicken greater sage-grouse and the list goes on and on because we really do look at USDA as our partners and conservation and I know it's the same way do they look at us so what is a working lands for wildlife program for those of you that aren't familiar with it it's a it's a NRCS I wouldn't even say program and I wouldn't even say initiative it's just an NRCS means to how to help producers sustain their agricultural ranching and forestry operations while still conserving and protecting at-risk species and as I mentioned earlier we provide that regulatory to predictability that can last up to 30 years through Endangered Species Act tools such as conference reports an opinion biological opinion safe harbor agreements so even after the contract would end let's say enter equip in that contract for whatever conservation practices they employed on their land concludes after five years regulatory predictability can still be given to that producer for up to 30 years if they maintain those practices so that's where that partnership still comes in with with FSA NRCS is that they're going out there and they're assessing that these actions are still being taking place or the actions that took place the practices that were employed are still viable and benefiting the species so where are we with working lands for wildlife so here's a good snapshot of the various locations on the national scale for for the working lands for wildlife program but as you'll see and read if you go to their website it's now instead of from a national office lens it's now from a state to state lens and so you'll have for example the pink in the southeast is the gopher tortoise but we're starting to dial more and more in at the local level I know for example Colorado proposed one for a trout species that only exists high in the Rocky Mountains and so they're the states are taking the reigns and and meeting the working lands for wildlife criteria and by doing that they're getting that stamp of approval from this this um initiative program even though you know it's not looked at it that way it's still just a means with which these these states can now do good things and be recognized for the species protection that they're employing and again partnering with the US Fish and Wildlife Service to get that regulatory predictability where where we can provide that and so you might have noticed I'll backspace real quick you'll notice the monarch butterfly area there from Texas up to Minnesota and over to Ohio and that was through direct work with with the US Fish and Wildlife Service where we were working with our NRCS partners to identify critical monarch butterfly habitat and identifying practices that could be employed by producers to enhance and protect the monarch butterfly and where that map on your right there derive from is from what we see here is we call it the heat map and so what that shows that the darker the red the more significant the monarch habitat is and all those dots identify costal program and partners for Fish and Wildlife programs for where we were on the ground employing conservation practices for the benefit of monarch and other species and then if you look to your left there that's where we're working with USDA and that heat map really really blends nicely with what NRCS monarch butterfly habitat emphasis area is it been identified so again ways with which we're collaborative collaborating with our USDA partners to maximize benefits offered by the farm concert excuse me farm bill conservation programs and here's here's a more recent example one that is from working lands for wildlife 2.0 I mentioned the state programs and here we have the Kenai Peninsula identified as an area of concern because it's one of these areas that are fish here heavily and it's a resource that's you know loved to pieces or and as a result the habitat the spawning habitat for um the the various salmon species that use the Kenai watershed and the Kenai Peninsula are coming under threat so if you look there in the bottom corner of the Kenai map and you see all those little blue squiggly lines those are the streams and the watershed of the Kenai Peninsula and most of those in the middle of the peninsula reside within a National Wildlife Refuge the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge but those areas that you see connect with the ocean are on private lands so this is an opportunity to partner not only with NRCS but all the other entities identified in that Kenai mountain becae partnership to work together to protect the riparian zones so that really ties in nicely with restoring America's estuaries on living shoreline initiative because that's exactly what we're working on up there is to maintain a living shoreline and protect the shoreline from being trampled to where that the habitat goes away but also you know you don't think of that area of Alaska as being significant an Ag production but there is some agricultural production up there and so working with those producers to to limit any potential runoff or problems that we get for see in these pristine environments so the next phase here is as we're continuing to work with our partners with FSA and in our CS and others across the landscape is how can we have a collective voice to identify areas of the farm bill that we would like to see improved and improved upon for and maximize the benefit to Fish and Wildlife so we're focusing primarily on various program aspects needing improvement as I mentioned for example the increase of the CRP acreage cap there's a high demand for more acres right now in those conversations have been going on in Congress I believe on representative Peterson out of Minnesota suggested a 40 million acre captive to bring it back up to historic levels but you know that that involves a significant amount of funding to reach that so you know we would like to see it increase the the reality is emit probably may not be increased to that 40 million level but no wholesale changes that we're looking at in our conversations with partners for farm bill conservation programs but more tweaks here and there to to maximize benefits and when we're messaging across the board we want to we want to coordinate that messaging with our conservation partners and so all voices are heard equally and we're we're doing our best not to be it at cross-purposes when we're when we're talking about what it is we would like to improve upon in the farm bill and so what are ways with which all of us out there can can participate in help well there's state technical committees if you haven't haven't had a conversation with your local NRCS or FSA office it'd be a good opportunity with them and what because what these technical committees do is that they review the operations and make decisions on how these programs can apply to locally again it's locally driven those programs that are have great success are because of the success and the drive of the local office and those supporting the local office that is requesting that these programs be employed across the landscape in their area in the US Fish and Wildlife Services at the table as well as other partners to make these recommendations to up to the state conservationists to improve benefits where we can and as I mentioned earlier there's county level discussions in conversations that are that are going on all the time and so that is a great place to start is to go into those county offices and identify ways with which we can we can make improvements and and and tweak things here and there but also the lens of working together and in partnership and trying to maximize the benefits and helping where we can and then there's you know opportunities there that you know there's other we just don't know we don't know what we don't know but we need to get those conversations going so we can recognize where opportunities do exist so with that I'll leave you my contact information as well as my supervisor Dave Walker's the farm conservation programs coordinator again there's only two of us in the US Fish and Wildlife Services full-time job is to pay attention to the farm bill and the conservation programs offered we're in and do our best to maximize the benefits for Fish & Wildlife across the country and it's a it's a big challenge but with great partners like restore America's estuaries that the challenge doesn't seem so daunting when we share that common voice so with that Leo I'll turn it back over to you great thank then that was really helpful you have a great overview so thank you for that we do have a couple questions so let me switch I'm going to I'm going to take the screen back so just a note to participants if you want to jot down Dave Walker's information when I take the screen back I'll have as information up but I won't have Dave's so I'll leave this up for just a quick minute while I'm asking the first question and then I'll I'll take control back at the screen so we have just just a few questions and the first one I think is would just be a benefit for everybody to hear but we had somebody ask about the reauthorization intervals as a farm bill so can you kind of talk about how often it gets reauthorized sure yeah that's it's at every five years it's on the start of the fiscal years to the end of the fiscal year so so every five years is when we look at reauthorizing the farm bill great thank you and then we have another question that reads which what are the main programs that favor lands eg private ranches that has been identified as critical for habitat connectivity for example if the local authority established zoning based on corridors could ranchers whose lands fall under the corridor benefit from financial support to implement new zoning regulations ug wildlife friendly fencing right so there's a couple programs that could be explored for that I you know because when you said ranching the first thing that came to my mind is is CRP grasslands because it is a working lands program that allows grazing and so those those areas that can be employed and put into that program could be used as connectivity for sure across the across the landscape the only limitation there as we talked about earlier is that the 2 million acre cap which is a part of that 24 million acre cap which currently resides in the 2014 farm bill so if that can get elevated increase then it would increase those those opportunities as well but there's also you know maybe areas for easements if you have willing landowners who wish to to sell property then there's there's also the easement programs that could possibly come into play there as well great thank you and then I have a couple other questions are coming in so this is great keep sending those end guys or we'll get to as many as we can so this one comes from a colleague down in North Carolina some states have oyster restoration and or aquaculture programs developed through the NRCS equip can ed talk a bit more about those specific programs within equip and also explain how we could go about creating the same in for example North Carolina what is the process yeah that that's a that's a great question about aquaculture and I'll be perfectly honest with you I'll have to do more research on it instead of speculate we can talk offline you have my contact information that'd be something to be be happy to pursue for you fantastic okay so we have a couple more let's see so we have an AR cpp question okay can deep water horizon funds be used as a match for our cpp federal funding for easement acquisition that's a good question um so if I'm not mistaken Deepwater Horizon dollars are is basically the payout from from British Petroleum for the oil spill and so can the dollars that British Petroleum is giving the US Fish and Wildlife Service if I'm trying to interpret their question can the money that's given to the US Fish and Wildlife Service from the BP verizon skill be used for as a match for our cpp and the answer would would be on the surface no it would have to be a contribution to the overall effort so if the state are the entity was trying to use let's say PR dollars to maximize the the money being used on the ground the the BP horizon dollars given to the US Fish and Wildlife Service could be used as a contribution but not as a direct cost share match okay great thanks for clarifying that all right we have another question about ESA predictability can you elaborate on this subject and describe how it is applied on the ground for a petitioned or candidate species eg the gopher tortoise WL FW sure great question for working lands for wildlife so the the premise is that let's say you have a forest landowner who is wanting to fin and burn longley stands in the southeast but would like to have that regulatory predictability with respect to incidental take of the species if they perform these actions and are receiving federal dollars to help perform those actions so what it is is through the consultation process you have identified practices that are allowed through the through section seven that say okay you can do XY and Z because those are considered approved for the conservation of the you know what it is the working lands trying to do but also it can benefit the species itself so if these landowners employ whatever those approved practices are as identified through that consultation process then the regulatory predictability comes in because if they are doing what it is that they said that they were going to do and it's in line with the consultation then they you know they'll have that assurance that if there is take that there isn't going to be a ramification for them because it's from incidental ends because they were doing with already been approved its conservation practices in the consultation great all right one last question for you before we hop off I know we're bumping up right at 2:00 but we will we'll give this one last question in in the conservation stewardship program what determines the species of wildlife that in activities can be done for so that would be at the local again that that state level that's where the states really take over and they identify what it is that they feel those enhancements for for example that lets you identify the animal enhancements specifically the species that they were wanting to target so that's not on a national scale lens that that's provided that is on a state-by-state basis so if you haven't had that conversation with your local NRCS our FSA office well specifically for CSP NRCS and yeah definitely do that and if there's something that's not identified that you know you feel would be benefited if it wasn't included in the animal enhancements then you know have that conversation great all right one more question popped in hopefully this won't be a long question how our specialty crops determined I'm sorry well can you repeat the question um how our specialty crops determined so can you can they can the person explain that a little bit more if the if the person who asked that question wants to elaborate I'll leave it open just for a minute otherwise Ed's email is there on the screen so the asker of that question might just need to follow up yeah that's fine yeah that's fine and by all means whoever if there's more questions I'd be happy to answer them and if I don't have the answer for you I will track it down and get back to you to provide you the right direction for it great all right well with that I want to be respectful of everybody's time so um thank you all so much for joining and thank you so much for giving us that perspective on the farm bill and all the opportunities to take advantage of the programs contained within that bill it was really helpful hopefully folks learned a lot and again as information contact information is up there on the screen so feel free to reach out to him and if I can offer any assistance again my information is up on the screen as well so thank you all again have a have a wonderful afternoon thank you