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, partnering with the Whidbey Camano Land Trust, will use this grant to restore rare costal prairie and endangered plant habitat in the Admiralty Inlet Natural Area Preserve, 2.5 miles south of Coupeville in the Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve on Whidbey Island. The department will remove invasive and non-native species and then reseed and plant native dominant prairie species, including golden paintbrush. The rare prairies contain 2 of the only 12 naturally occurring populations of golden paintbrush, which is a species listed by the federal government as threatened with extinction under the Endangered Species Act and designated as endangered by the State. The department will restore more than 2 acres in two portions of the preserve. The work will help preserve and perpetuate the last native prairies in north Puget Sound, including one that is extraordinarily rare.