OpportunityTitle: Assessing the Condition of Upland Vegetation in Four Intermountain Region Parks, and Planning for the Restoration of Grassland Prairie Habitats in Nine National Park Units
AdditionalInformationOnEligibility: This funding announcement is not a request for applications. This is a single source award to Texas A&amp;M University.
Description: This is a Notice of Intent (NOI) to award a non-competitive Task Agreement under the Gulf Coast, Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU) Master Cooperative Agreement (P12AC51051) in accordance with Department of Interior, 505 Departmental Manual 2.12C. The purpose of this project is to assess the condition of upland vegetation in four national park units (Alibates Flint Quarry NM, Amistad NRA, Chickasaw NRA, and Lake Meredith NRA) and then begin the initial phases of restoring prairie habitats in nine park units that have previously been determined to have at least some habitats in degraded condition. For the four park units, ecological conditions of upland vegetation will be assessed. The objective is to place existing scientific data and knowledge into a context and format(s) that ensures its usefulness to park managers for park planning, decision making, and accountability reporting purposes. As such, the cooperator will conduct rapid assessments for each of park units to provide park managers a perspective on the status of current conditions for a subset for a subset of important park natural resources. For nine park units (Bent&#146;s Old Fort NHS, Capulin Volcano NM, Chickasaw NRA, Fort Larned NHS, Lake Meredith NRA, Pecos NHP, Sand Creek Massacre NHS, San Antonio Missions NHP, and Washita Battlefield NHS) in which the vegetation has previously been fully or partially assessed and determined to be in a degraded condition and in need of restoration, this project will take a combined approach to initiate restoration of 750 acres of shortgrass and mixed-grass prairie. In addition, the project will further build National Park Service expertise in native shortgrass and mixed-grass prairie restoration initiated during a previous project. This project provides a means of advancing the art of natural resource assessment and restoration via information transfer to both internal and external audiences including other government agencies, non-government organizations and the general public. It involves students who not only gain experience and knowledge about restoration of prairie habitats, but enables them to take that experience back and to share that knowledge with their university and other environments. The assessment portion of this agreement also adds to the public accountability of our natural resource management. Please see attached Full Announcement for more information.
GrantorContactEmailDescription: rose_mcclelland@nps.gov
GrantorContactText: Rose McClelland &lt;br/&gt;Contracting Specialist &lt;br/&gt;Phone 504-589-3882