The U.S. Department of Agriculture is investing $21 million in 10 additional projects nationwide, including one in Texas, aimed at opening up more private land for hunting, fishing and other outdoor recreation. The money flows through a federal competitive grant program for state and tribal governments, which may use up to 25% of funds to incentivize landowners to improve wildlife habitat on lands enrolled in public-access programs, and this latest round touches nine states altogether.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service, the second-round award selections include projects in Arizona, Kansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. For Texas, that means the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department proposes to expand the number of public hunting areas and days, increase the acreage of its leased public-access program, and bump up the number of private-land drawn-hunt permits available through the state-run system, in the project description. The department also plans to maintain existing leased river-access sites and establish new leased river-access sites for fishing, paddling and wildlife viewing, though these remain stated plans rather than completed work, in the project description.
How the Money Moves Through States
The program behind the funding is called the Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program, or VPA-HIP, which NRCS uses to help state and tribal governments encourage private landowners to open their land for hunting, fishing and other wildlife-dependent recreation. Selected projects may last up to three years and will receive between $833,000 and $3 million in funding, and project sponsors can use up to 25% of those funds to incentivize landowners to improve wildlife habitat on enrolled lands.
Other states in this round have laid out specific numbers for what they hope to achieve. The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks will expand its walk-in hunting and walk-in fishing access programs, aiming to enroll 40,000 additional acres of public hunting land, add 250 acres of fishing access, create two navigable river-access sites and sign up 180 new landowner enrollments. The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma will use its share of the funding to establish and expand a tribal voluntary public-access program meant to incentivize private landowners to provide public access across tribal lands in southeastern Oklahoma.
South Dakota's slice of the pie is a $3 million project run with the state's Game, Fish and Parks department, as reported by DRGNews. That project aims to enroll 150,000 acres of private land already in the Wetland Reserve Easement or Conservation Reserve Program into public hunting-access programs, and it will extend 15 existing fishing-access leases while establishing at least 15 new multi-year leases, the outlet reported.
A Program Decades in the Making
NRCS Chief Colton L. Buckley said expanding wildlife conservation and outdoor access through locally led partnerships is a main priority for the agency. He said VPA-HIP enables the agency to work with state and tribal partners to provide private-land recreational access, support rural communities and keep working land in working hands.
Funding for VPA-HIP was restored under the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, and this second round builds on momentum from earlier in the year: NRCS awarded $49 million to 19 projects in the first round back in July, bringing the combined total to $70 million invested across 29 projects over the two award rounds. NRCS, which has helped farmers, ranchers and forestland owners for more than 90 years, provides one-on-one technical and financial assistance through voluntary, incentive-based conservation programs, according to the agency.
Earlier VPA-HIP-style efforts outside this latest round give a sense of what these investments can eventually look like once they reach landowners. As detailed by the Oklahoma Farm Report, the Arizona Fish and Game Department opened 4.8 million acres of private and land-locked public lands for public use, the Missouri Department of Conservation enrolled 30,000 acres into its Outdoor Recreation Access Program, and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife offered 75,000 acres across six counties for public hunting of wild turkey, pheasant and big game at no cost to users.
For now, Texas's piece of the new round remains at the proposal stage, with no confirmed timeline, final acreage or site locations yet made public. North Texas e-News reported on the funding announcement, and further details on how the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's plans take shape are expected as the North Texas e-News project moves forward.
