OpportunityTitle: BLM CA Evaluate/Model Impacts of Roads, Washes, and Fences to Desert Tortoise Population Viability
AdditionalInformationOnEligibility: This financial assistance opportunity is also open to all partners under any Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU) program.  CESUs are partnerships that provide research, technical assistance, and education.  If a cooperative agreement is awarded to a CESU partner under a formally negotiated Master CESU agreement, indirect costs are limited to a rate of no more than 17.5% of the indirect cost base recognized in the partner&apos;s Federal Agency-approved Negotiated Indirect Cost Rate Agreement (NICRA).
Description: The development of utility-scale solar energy in the Desert Southwest brings with it policy concerns over impacts to legally protected species such as the desert tortoise. Listed as threatened since 1990, the desert tortoise is threatened by the loss of habitat and other development-related impacts such as roads. As BLM has been approving renewable energy development on public lands, the Bureau sought ways to minimize new impacts to the desert tortoise and to mitigate existing impacts to improve the recovery and status of the species. One such mitigation is installing roadside fencing as a means of reducing tortoise mortalities and recapturing habitat adjacent to roadways that is depauperate of tortoise.
GrantorContactEmailDescription: BLM
GrantorContactText: GMO Leona Parker (530) 252-5338&lt;br/&gt;leona_parker@blm.gov&lt;br/&gt;