BLM Utah Listed Cacti Sampling and Monitoring in Sevier, Emery and Wayne Counties, Utah | L18AS00010

Opportunity Information: Apply for L18AS00010

The BLM Utah Listed Cacti Sampling and Monitoring opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number L18AS00010) is a Bureau of Land Management discretionary funding announcement under the U.S. Department of the Interior that aims to resolve long-running disagreements about the status of a federally listed cactus, the Wright fishhook cactus, across parts of central and southeastern Utah. The project is centered in Sevier, Emery, and Wayne Counties, where conflicting datasets and differing interpretations among the BLM, the National Park Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have contributed to livestock grazing permit renewals being delayed for close to a decade. The core idea behind the grant is to bring in an independent, reputable third party with strong scientific credentials to help settle these disputes through a transparent, defensible monitoring and sampling effort.

The need for the project is framed around two major unanswered conservation questions that remain despite decades of recovery work since the cactus was listed in 1979. First, the agencies still lack a reliable, science-based estimate of how many individual plants exist on the landscape and how widely they are distributed. Second, there is still uncertainty about the degree to which livestock grazing and trampling affect individual plants and overall population health. Because these questions have direct implications for both endangered species management and grazing administration, the BLM is seeking a partner that can design and carry out rigorous field sampling and monitoring that can stand up to interagency scrutiny and inform future decisions.

The work is to be funded through a cooperative agreement, which signals that BLM staff are expected to be involved and provide assistance while the recipient leads the scientific design and implementation. The announcement states that the recipient should, at minimum, design and implement the necessary sampling and monitoring during 2019 and 2020, with the expectation that results will ultimately be peer reviewed and published. In practical terms, this implies the BLM is looking for more than a simple one-season survey; it is seeking a structured effort capable of estimating population extent, numbers, and trends over time, and of evaluating grazing-related effects using methods that produce credible, repeatable results.

The public benefit case is tied to transparency, regulatory efficiency, and better species-status determinations. The BLM notes that populations of these threatened and endangered cacti occur within multiple grazing allotments, but that the agency has not had sufficient data to confidently make permit renewal decisions. By producing sound scientific information on population trends and management impacts, the project is intended to help the BLM move forward with long-stalled grazing permit decisions in a way that is better supported by evidence. At the same time, the monitoring data would support the BLM and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in evaluating whether the cactus should be downlisted or potentially delisted. The announcement explicitly points out that if new data were strong enough to support delisting, the public could see an immediate benefit in the form of fewer required consultations with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, reducing administrative burden while maintaining compliance with species protection requirements.

From an administrative standpoint, the opportunity was open to unrestricted eligible applicants (meaning it was broadly available to a wide range of entity types, subject to any eligibility clarifications in the full notice). The award ceiling was $40,000, with the BLM anticipating a single award. The opportunity was posted July 16, 2018, and originally closed August 16, 2018. Overall, the grant is best understood as a targeted, science-driven effort to reconcile disputed cactus data, improve confidence in population estimates and trend information, and clarify the relationship between grazing activity and species conservation outcomes so that both land management and species-status decisions can proceed on a stronger factual foundation.

• The Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "BLM Utah Listed Cacti Sampling and Monitoring in Sevier, Emery and Wayne Counties, Utah" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.246.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jul 16, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Aug 16, 2018. (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 $40,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for L18AS00010

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: