CONSERVATION CORNER
May 1, 2006
National Fish Habitat Initiative Becomes Plan
by James L. Cummins

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have now elevated the importance of sport fisheries in our great nation. The Service's National Fish Habitat Initiative is now the National Fish Habitat Action Plan.

This unprecedented multi partner plan to protect, restore and enhance fisheries and aquatic habitat, recently got a green light from the state's fish and wildlife directors. The plan began as an idea of a group convened by the Sport Fishing and Boating Partnership Council. This grand idea gained momentum as fisheries experts from around the country outlined a science based foundation for documenting habitat and fish population trends, establishing habitat improvement priorities and tracking and reporting results of partnership efforts.

With the help of federal, state, regional and local partners, such as Wildlife Mississippi, the Initiative was transformed into an Action Plan.

At a recent conference, leading experts from the fisheries sciences and management community presented compelling reasons for the Plan and for joining the effort to improve the continental fisheries and their habitats.

My friend, Mamie Parker of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and a native of Lake Village, Arkansas, heralded the Action Plan as a model of cooperative conservation. She noted that, as support for this effort grows, the investment and work of its partnerships are expected to double the number of assessed habitat miles, eliminate hundreds of fish passage barriers and restore critical stream and shoreline miles and wetland acres to benefit fish populations and improve water resources.

"One hundred years from now," stated Parker, "we hope our great grandchildren will say that we got it right - that the National Fish Habitat Action Plan was an historic benchmark in fish and aquatic habitat conservation, and that we changed for the better the way conservation is done in this country."

Although there is no explicit date for completion of the goals and objectives of the Action Plan, its many partners recognize that time to address fish and fish habitat issues is dwindling, and aggressive implementation of the Plan is paramount to its needed success.

This summer, the National Fish Habitat Board will be selected to oversee implementation of the Action Plan. And during the next year, a major expansion of new regional fish habitat partnerships is anticipated.

For more information about the Action Plan and partnership opportunities log on to http://www.fishhabitat.org/.