The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) released their list of awardees for their Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program and the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s proposal to develop the Ohio Public Access for Wildlife (OPAW) program was awarded $1,831,500 to create new hunting, trapping, and wildlife watching opportunities on private land in Ohio. 

“The award winning proposal relied heavily on the Terrestrial Wildlife Ecology Lab’s assessment of the existing Private Lands Cooperative Program and exploration of alternative program incentive structures,” said Gabe Karns, a clinical faculty of land practice with the Terrestrial Wildlife Ecology Lab (TWEL) in the School of Environment and Natural Resources.  The school is in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University. 

“I am excited to report that the TWEL project - Characterizing Potential for Recreational Access and Habitat Conservation within Ohio's Private Landscape has already been a huge return on investment for the Ohio Division of Wildlife,” Karns said.

According to the project summary for the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s award winning proposal, the OPAW will issue incentive payments to enrolled landowners for providing public access to lands they own.

Co-PIs for the TWEL project include the following faculty and researchers in the School of Environment and Natural Resources Gabriel Karns, Jeremy Bruskotter, Steve Matthews, Kristina Slagle, Alia Dietsch and several Ohio Division of Wildlife personnel.

Source: Gabe Karns