FY17 Great Northern LCC Funding Guidance | F17AS00042

Opportunity Information: Apply for F17AS00042

The FY17 Great Northern Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GNLCC) Funding Guidance (Opportunity No. F17AS00042) is a discretionary funding opportunity from the Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). It is designed to support projects that fill clearly identified data and information gaps and produce resource vulnerability assessments. The central purpose is to strengthen shared, landscape-scale understanding of how major stressors across the Great Northern region affect high-priority conservation targets, so agencies, tribes, First Nations, and partners can make better coordinated, science-based decisions.

Projects funded under this guidance are expected to directly advance one or more of five conservation goals laid out by the GNLCC. The first goal focuses on keeping large landscapes intact and functioning, across both land and water systems, so natural community assemblages can persist. The second goal emphasizes connectivity and permeability across the landscape, meaning projects should help conserve or evaluate ecological connections that allow wildlife movement, migration, dispersal, and other key biophysical processes across aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. The third goal is centered on hydrology: maintaining water regimes in lakes, wetlands, rivers, and streams that support native or otherwise desirable aquatic plant and animal communities. The fourth goal addresses disturbance dynamics at broad scales, encouraging work that helps sustain ecological integrity by understanding and promoting disturbance regimes (such as fire, flooding, insects, or other natural processes) that can function within a future range of variability as conditions change. The fifth goal explicitly integrates people and place, prioritizing large, functional landscapes where local communities, including tribes and First Nations, can maintain livelihoods, culture, identity, stories, and stewardship relationships tied to lands, waters, fish, and wildlife.

Within those goals, proposals must also align with the funding framework that will guide GNLCC work from FY17 through FY21, as described in the full Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) template referenced in the announcement. In practical terms, that means applicants should frame their work as part of a longer-term regional science and management agenda rather than as isolated, stand-alone research. Competitive projects would typically be expected to deliver usable products (for example, datasets, decision-support tools, mapped vulnerability analyses, syntheses, or other actionable information) that can be applied across partners and jurisdictions.

The opportunity allows funding through either grants or cooperative agreements, and it is categorized under Information and Statistics and Natural Resources. Eligible applicants are broad and include state, county, and local governments; special districts; independent school districts; public and private institutions of higher education; federally recognized tribal governments and other tribal organizations; public/Indian housing authorities; and nonprofit organizations with or without 501(c)(3) status. The CFDA program numbers listed are 15.669, 15.670, and 15.678, indicating it draws from established federal assistance authorities tied to fish and wildlife and related conservation work.

In terms of scale and competition, the posted award ceiling is $1,000,000, with an expectation of around 15 awards, though the announcement makes clear that exact funding levels by need area are not pre-set. Final award selections and amounts are ultimately at the discretion of the GNLCC Steering Committee and the FWS Region 6 Regional Director. The agency also reserves the right to make no awards under the announcement, which is an important caveat for applicants planning timelines or matching commitments.

The announcement was created on December 5, 2016, with an original closing date of February 17, 2017. Timeliness is determined by the GNLCC Coordinator based on the date and time of electronic submission, so applicants would need to ensure their submissions are complete and transmitted before the deadline rather than relying on later corrections.

Overall, this funding guidance is best understood as support for applied, landscape-scale conservation science: collecting and synthesizing priority data, evaluating vulnerabilities to key stressors, and producing products that help partners maintain intact systems, connectivity, resilient hydrology and disturbance processes, and culturally and economically meaningful landscapes for the people who depend on and steward them.

• The Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service in the information and statistics, natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "FY17 Great Northern LCC Funding Guidance" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.669, 15.670, 15.678.
• This funding opportunity was created on Dec 05, 2016.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Feb 17, 2017 GNLCC Coordinator will determine timeliness by reviewing the date and time of electronic submission.. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $1,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 15 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for F17AS00042

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