Category Overview
The State Lands Restoration and Enhancement category provides funding to two state agencies to help repair damaged plant and animal habitat. These grants focus on resource preservation and protection of public lands. Projects in this category help bring important natural areas and resources back to their original functions by improving the self sustaining and ecological functionality of sites.
Project Highlights
The Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) and Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) will use this grant to restore more than 1,300 acres of outwash prairie, grassland bald, oak woodland, and wetland habitat at five of the most significant conservation sites in the South Puget Sound region: Scatter Creek Wildlife Area, Mima Mounds Natural Area Preserve, West Rocky Prairie Wildlife Area, Rocky Prairie Natural Area Preserve, and Bald Hill Natural Area Preserve. These sites harbor some of the last remaining populations of federal and state listed threatened and endangered plants and animals and WDFW’s Species of Greatest Conservation Need in the region.This project will restore priority areas by acquiring native plant materials, preparing restoration areas for seeding through prescribed burning, mowing, and controlling invasive plants, and seeding and replanting in these areas. Key invasives will be controlled on additional prairie within the sites. Oak woodlands will be restored at three of the locations, including a recent addition at Mima Mounds, by controlling invasives, removing encroaching conifers, and seeding with understory species. Oregon spotted frog habitat will be enhanced at West Rocky Prairie by controlling reed canary grass and encroaching willows within occupied wetlands. The project areas complement units that have been restored under previous WWRP-funded restoration projects over the past 15 years and are being maintained with agency and other funds.