News Feature                                                            1/22/2008

Memorandum of Understanding on Conservation Buffers signed at National Pheasant Fest

A memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed on Saturday, January 19, 2008 at National Pheasant Fest at the RiverCentre in St. Paul, Minnesota.  The MOU was signed by Pheasants Forever (PF), Minnesota Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Minnesota Board of Soil and Water Resources, USDA-Farm Service Agency and the USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).

These conservation partners are engaged in compatible activities to enhance the productivity, profitability and environmental responsibility of the agricultural sector in Minnesota.  Areas of partner responsibility and expertise include promotion, marketing, natural resource conservation and management, land use planning, risk management and community development. 

Minnesota NRCS administers a variety of technical and financial assistance programs on private lands for establishing, restoring or improving wildlife habitats; working primarily through conservation districts and cooperative endeavors between landowners and Federal, state and local conservation partners and non-profit agencies.  These voluntary programs include the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program a cost-share program which provides technical assistance to develop or improve wildlife habitat; Environmental Quality incentives Program (EQIP) which allows local working groups to designate wildlife habitat as a priority local resource concern thereby allowing financial and technical assistance through NRCS for wildlife establishment and habitat improvement practices; Conservation Security Program (CSP) which provides a Habitat Management Enhancement incentives payment for landowners to include additional wildlife habitat and management practice payment for landowners to include additional wildlife habitat and management practice components to existing practices.   Through these programs conservation buffers practices such as riparian forest buffers, forest buffers, living snow fences, windbreaks, riparian herbaceous buffers, filter strips, grassed waterways, field borders and other conservation practices are planned and implemented on private lands.

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