Working Lands for Wildlife is a partnership between NRCS and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to use agency technical expertise and financial assistance to combat the decline of seven specific wildlife species whose decline can be reversed and will benefit other species with similar habitat needs. Nearly two thirds of all species federally listed as threatened or endangered exist on private lands. Conservation efforts on these lands generate outdoor recreation and economic activity that result in sustained growth for local communities and landowners.
WLFW is currently active in 48 states. Eight national and 14 state-identified initiatives are used to focus individual projects that meet both the needs of the species as well as those of the agricultural operations. Individual species are used as barometers for healthy, functioning landscapes where conservation efforts also benefit a multitude of additional species as well.
Through Working Lands for Wildlife landowners can voluntarily participate in an incentive-based efforts to:
- Restore populations of declining wildlife species.
- Provide farmers, ranchers, and forest managers with regulatory certainty that conservation investments they make today help sustain their operations over the long term.
- Strengthen and sustain rural economies by restoring and protecting the productive capacity of working lands
Interested landowners should contact their local NRCS office. An NRCS planner will determine if habitat on the property is suitable, can be improved, or created to benefit the species. If so, the NRCS planner and the landowner will jointly develop a conservation plan, which will recommend a combination of practices and associated conservation measures that the landowner will apply to create or improve the habitat for the species.
Watch a video on how this program works for landowners.
Contact Working Lands for Wildlife
Contact Working Lands for Wildlife
Tim Griffiths
10 East Babcock Street
Federal Building, Room 443
Bozeman, MT 59715
Phone: (406) 587-6812
Cell Phone: (406) 600-3908
Service Area
Statewide service provider in:
- Alabama
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Florida
- Georgia
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Minnesota
- Mississippi
- Missouri
- Montana
- Nebraska
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Virginia
- Washington
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming