Northern Gulf Coastal Program Goals and Frequently Asked Questions

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s Coastal Program (http://www.fws.gov/coastal) is a voluntary and non-regulatory program whose mission is to efficiently achieve voluntary habitat conservation through financial and technical assistance for the benefit of Federal Trust Species. The Coastal Program operates through 24 offices located along our nation's Atlantic, Gulf, Pacific, and Great Lakes coasts. The goals of the Northern Gulf Coastal Program (http://www.fws.gov/daphne/Coastal/Coastal.html), based in Moss Point, MS, are:

• To effectively restore or enhance degraded coastal wetlands and uplands, estuaries, and riparian corridors along the northern Gulf (AL, MS, LA), and within the context of climate change and sea level rise;

• To establish living shorelines as the primary means for protecting eroding shorelines in these coastal areas where appropriate, thereby steering coastal protection efforts away from hardening;

• To form partnerships with private groups and government agencies to strategically restore, enhance, conserve, and protect coastal habitat and resources;

• To implement the Strategic Habitat Conservation framework ( www.fws.gov/southeast/SHC) to put the right conservation in the right places across the coastal landscape for the benefit of fish and wildlife.

If you have a coastal conservation project that can help achieve these goals and would like to request financial assistance from the Northern Gulf Coastal Program (NGCP) in fiscal year 2012, please click here for some frequently asked questions about the program.

Then contact Patric Harper to discuss your project ideas and to get more information about developing a cooperative agreement.

Patric Harper
Northern Gulf Coastal Program Coordinator US Fish and Wildlife Service Grand Bay Coastal Resources Center
6005 Bayou Heron Road
Moss Point, MS 39562
228-475-0765 x 105
228-475-8097 fax

We look forward to working with our partners to achieve coastal conservation in the northern Gulf.