A three-year, $270,000 grant from the Nebraska Environmental Trust will help the University of Nebraska-Lincoln further its conservation efforts for federally endangered interior least terns and threatened piping
the Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Monday, April 28, 2008 7:00 pm
A three-year, $270,000 grant from the Nebraska Environmental Trust will help the University of Nebraska-Lincoln further its conservation efforts for federally endangered interior least terns and threatened piping plovers.
UNL initially will receive $130,000 for the project, which is titled “Advancing Tern and Plover Common Sense Conservation into the Future.”
The funding will go to the Tern and Plover Conservation Partnership, which operates within UNL’s School of Natural Resources. The partnership is recognized nationally and internationally as a model for resolving threatened and endangered species controversies and conflicts.
"The partnership has demonstrated that by working cooperatively with commercial interests, local communities and government agencies, effective conservation and management measures can be implemented," said Mary Bomberger Brown, partnership program coordinator.
The grant will help the partnership develop and broaden partner community efforts, expand education programming, build a scientifically sound adaptive management framework and become more cost efficient, Bomberger Brown said.
"The greatest success will be having secure populations of interior least terns and piping plovers, so they will no longer be state or federally endangered or threatened anywhere in their ranges," she said.
Least terns and piping plovers nesting along the Platte, Loup and Elkhorn rivers use several of Nebraska's unique biological landscapes, as identified by the Nebraska Legacy Project, Bomberger Brown said.
“By working in these areas, the Tern and Plover Partnership has additional opportunities to protect those habitats that multiple species depend on while protecting terns and plovers,” she said.
The UNL grant is one of 77 projects receiving a total of nearly $14.8 million in trust funding this year.