Video of this listening to may be discovered on the House Natural Resources Committee website.
Chairman Bentz, Rating Member Huffman, and Members of the Subcommittee, thanks for the chance to testify on the America’s Wildlife Habitat Conservation Act. I’m Glenn Olson, and I function the Donal O’Brien Chair in Fowl Conservation on the Nationwide Audubon Society. Audubon’s mission is to guard birds and the locations they want, at the moment and tomorrow. Audubon has greater than two million members and supporters, 510 affiliated chapters and 55 nature facilities throughout the nation.
In 2015, Audubon was requested to hitch a panel established by the Affiliation of Fish and Wildlife Businesses to think about the present system of conservation funding. I joined the Blue Ribbon Panel together with leaders from the enterprise sector, looking and sportfishing teams, personal landowners, state fish and wildlife businesses, and different conservation teams. The panel was chaired by John Morris, the founding father of Bass Professional Retailers, and David Freudenthal, the previous Governor of Wyoming. All of the contributors on the Panel had a typical objective to search out the simplest and environment friendly methodology of funding conservation that may assure the long-term well being and survival of wildlife species–from songbirds to massive recreation.
We spent over a 12 months collectively growing our suggestions. We held a DC listening to that included constructive suggestions on our strategy from each the US Chamber of Commerce and the Nationwide Affiliation of Realtors. The idea of pro-actively and deliberately sustaining wildlife populations in order that future listings of threatened and endangered species wouldn’t be essential was well-received as a sound strategy to information investments.
After contemplating a large number of choices, the panel really helpful that Congress dedicate $1.3 billion yearly to the Wildlife Conservation Restoration Program below the Pittman-Robertson Act – the monetary funding the Panel decided was essential and essential to hold out Congressionally-mandated State Wildlife Motion Plans and get better and preserve 12,000 recognized species of best conservation want. Implementing the Panel’s suggestion would provide proactive and cost-effective assist in stopping species from changing into threatened or endangered, by way of long-term collaborative and voluntary conservation.
Rising from the Panel’s suggestions was the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act, laws sponsored by Congresswoman Dingell with vital bipartisan assist, and which handed the Home within the 117th Congress. This laws was supported by Audubon and a broad and numerous coalition of supporters and stakeholders–comparable in breadth and scope to the events who engaged with the Blue Ribbon Panel. I want to thank Congresswoman Dingell and the opposite Members of the Subcommittee who supported that laws in your efforts on this essential subject.
We’re within the midst of a biodiversity disaster, and no species is being spared, which has profound results on folks and communities. North America has misplaced practically 3 billion birds since 1970 – or about 1 in 4 birds – with widespread declines throughout practically all teams of birds, together with a 40% decline in Western Meadowlarks, the long-lasting state chook of Wyoming, Oregon, Montana, Kansas, and others.
Birds are experiencing ongoing threats from habitat loss and degradation, local weather change, and plenty of different challenges. Habitat loss impacts a chook’s capability to search out meals, water, and secure locations to lift their younger and migrate. Even widespread yard birds are in danger.
Wildlife Motion Plans have recognized greater than 400 species of birds with conservation wants. Restoration of dwindling populations to stop extra species from changing into threatened and endangered requires sustained, devoted funding, as populations can take a long time to bounce again to sustainable ranges.
Birds are a serious financial driver in communities throughout the nation. Birdwatching brings in vital income to native economies. The newest survey by the Fish and Wildlife Service discovered that 96 million folks within the U.S. engaged in birdwatching in 2022, contributing $100 billion to the U.S. financial system yearly. Birds additionally present cultural significance, and critically essential and worthwhile pest management to agriculture and forestry.
Because of this, laws that meets the second of the biodiversity and wildlife conservation disaster is essential. We admire the intent of the America’s Wildlife Habitat Conservation Act to offer funding towards the objective of conserving and restoring wildlife habitat. And we admire the Act’s objective of participating personal landowners in cooperative conservation on their forests, ranches and farms – we’d like this strategy.
Nevertheless, the proposed funding ranges and sundown of those investments, coupled with the rescission of Inflation Discount Act and Infrastructure Funding and Jobs Act funding, and the inclusion of different coverage measures, provides us concern and due to this fact Audubon is unable to assist the invoice as at present written.
The laws gives $300 million to States and $20 million to Tribes yearly for 5 years. This funding is simply a fraction of the Blue Ribbon Panel’s really helpful $1.3 billion in devoted annual funding. The laws would require reauthorization each 5 years, which might trigger inconsistency in funding ranges and uncertainty for multi-year conservation. A constant funding supply is required to make sure the effectiveness of those tasks.
Tribal investments are essential to wildlife conservation and administration. Native Individuals, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians handle an space of the nation’s wildlife habitat nearly as massive as California with out the good thing about income from looking and fishing license gross sales and federal tax income that state wildlife businesses are capable of make the most of. Below the America’s Wildlife Habitat Conservation Act, Tribes would obtain solely $20 million for the subsequent 5 years in comparison with $97.5 million yearly below the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act.
The laws additionally rescinds essential funds for the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Bureau of Reclamation. The rescission of those funds would have an effect on essential freshwater and coastal restoration and getting older infrastructure upgrades–that are essential for conserving pure assets that communities depend upon.
In closing, we’d like the pillars of what the Blue Ribbon Panel really helpful is important to guard hundreds of at-risk species; and which was mirrored within the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act. That laws included the wants and considerations of a broad, numerous coalition of stakeholders, and displays years of collaboration and partnership. It has loved bipartisan assist in Congress and deep assist amongst states, Tribes, and the conservation and enterprise communities.
We sit up for working with the Subcommittee to construct on at the moment’s dialogue and pursue bipartisan measures that align with the suggestions and findings of the Blue Ribbon Panel, and that successfully tackle the biodiversity disaster that’s driving alarming declines in wildlife populations that we maintain close to and expensive.
