8 landowners slated to enroll 40,000 acres in the WAFWA RWP
WAFWA will continue to accept applications for enrollment in their LPC conservation plan, with the next funding cycle to occur sometime in the spring of 2015.
WAFWA received 24 eligible applications from across the LPC range totaling about 220,000 acres. The highest ranking applications included 8 landowners with a total of about 40,000 acres. Landowners who follow the prescriptions in these conservation plans will not only receive annual payments, but they are also exempted from the take prohibition of the endangered species act (ESA). The WAFWA will be continually accepting landowner applications for this program, but implementation will not likely begin until spring 2015.
The WAFWA will also be continuously developing another type of conservation plan for those landowners not selected during the ranking process or only wanting to be exempted from the take prohibitions of the ESA. The management prescriptions in these conservation plans won’t be quite as conservative and landowners won’t receive payment for implementing them. However, enrolled landowners will be protected from the take provisions of the ESA as long as they are following the management prescriptions contained in the conservation plan.