Red-cockaded Woodpecker

What is the Landowner Incentive Program?

Red-cockaded Woodpecker

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's Landowner Incentive Program and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program offer funding assistance to private landowners for Red-cockaded Woodpecker habitat restoration and management.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's Landowner Incentive Program (LIP) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS) Partners for Fish and Wildlife (PFW) program seek to restore and enhance fish and wildlife habitat on private lands. They are two separate sources of cost-share assistance, but most recently they have teamed up to form an East Texas Cooperative. Through this option of a cooperative program, the actual costs (up to 80% of the total project cost) for specific wildlife habitat improvement actions are reimbursed directly to the landowner.

Red-cockaded Woodpecker
Photo by R.N. Conner, USFS

This provides cost-sharing and technical assistance opportunities to non-federal landowners, including private landowners, local governments, native American tribes, educational institutions, and other entities. This program is intended to benefit all federal trust resources, including waterfowl, migratory birds, as well as candidate, threatened, and endangered species. Projects that include wildlife habitat enhancement/restoration activities in wetlands, native prairies, riparian corridors, bottomland hardwoods, and upland habitats such as longleaf pine reforestation are sought through this cooperative. Program personnel maintain a close working relationship with personnel from the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), local Soil and Water Conservation Districts, Texas Forest Service, other government agencies, and private organizations such as Ducks Unlimited and the National Wild Turkey Federation.

For additional information on LIP in East Texas, please contact TPWD Biologist Ricky Maxey at (936) 564-0234. For additional information on PFW, please contact USFWS Fish and Wildlife Biologist Jeff Reid at (936) 639-8546.