South Dakota’s Agricultural Land Trust was recently awarded a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, as part of a $15.6 million package to protect vital grassland habitat in the Northern Great Plains while also strengthening ranching operations and communities.
Executive Director Tony Leif says they will use over $173,000 ($173,200) to provide financial assistance for easement transactions and to further incentivize landowner easement and partner donations in South Dakota. He says easement transactions are expensive, and this funding will save landowners thousands of dollars in the cost of appraisals, baseline reports and boundary surveys as well as title filing and closing costs.
Leif says interest in conservation easements in South Dakota is high, particularly in and around the Black Hills. He says protecting working lands from residential and commercial development with easements is an essential tool for those landowners in the path of development who want to retain their productive agricultural operations into the future.
In addition to the SDALT grant, other South Dakota recipients are:
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Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe to increase landscape connectivity for pronghorn in the Cheyenne River Reservation
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Rosebud Economic Development Corporation to restore grasslands of the Wolakota Buffalo Range
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Grand River Ranger District to restore the Grand River National Grasslands with adaptive management practices
The NFWF grant awards include 26 projects in Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, as part of the Northern Great Plains Program. The program works on a voluntary basis with private landowners and local partners to conserve and restore native prairie and wildlife populations while also benefiting local ranching operations and tribal communities. The projects supported by these grants will tackle several conservation obstacles including encroachment of invasive species, human development and land use conversion, poor grazing practices and conservation capacity.
The NFWF funding will leverage $30.1 million in matching contributions to generate a total conservation impact of $45.7 million in the Northern Great Plains Program by:
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Restoring 175,000 acres
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Improving management on 430,000 acres
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Removing or improving 145 miles of fencing
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Protecting 62,000 acres via voluntary conservation easements
SDALT is an organization founded by South Dakota farmers and ranchers to work with landowners to conserve South Dakota’s agricultural heritage and working landscapes for the benefit of future generations.
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