Regional Conservation Partnership Program - Indiana

The project leverages $13.5 million in support from partners to place conservation best management practices on the ground, and educate landowners on the importance of soil health and decreased nutrient loading.

The primary goal of this multi-state project is to protect the western basin of Lake Erie by reducing phosphorus and sediment loading, and algal blooms by using a suite of conservation practices working towards a 40% reduction of dissolved phosphorus. Also, this project will assist with meeting the goals of each state’s respective Domestic Action Plan to reduce total phosphorus and soluble reactive phosphorus through nutrient management and best management practices.

The project area targets the Maumee headwaters, identified as a higher source of phosphorus loadings. Our goals include furthering conservation, restoration and sustainable use of soil, water and wildlife on a watershed scale and encouraging partner groups to work with producers to meet or avoid the need for national, state, and local natural resource regulatory requirements.

The Nature Conservancy, Benton County SWCD, Warren County SWCD and White County SWCD are proud to partner with Ceres Solutions and Land O Lakes to scale targeted conservation in Indiana’s Big Pine Creek Watershed. The Big Pine Creek watershed, located in west-central Indiana, is a tributary of the Wabash River and part of the Mississippi River Basin drainage.

Through the Big Pine Creek Watershed Partnership, agronomists and crop advisors from Ceres Solution within the watershed will engage growers to adopt practices utilizing EQIP that can improve nutrient efficiency, soil health, and water quality.

The Nature Conservancy will work with Ceres Solutions and Land O Lakes Truterra to target grower engagement and practice enrollment to locations most likely to produce greatest conservation return (tons of sediment or pounds of nutrients retained per EQIP dollars spent).

The project partners will also work to streamline grower screening and enrollment for EQIP participation through the use of Ceres Solutions and Land O Lakes precision agronomic tools. Both practices and acreage targets will greatly accelerate progress towards long-term Best Management Practice targets identified in the recently completed Big Pine Creek and Mud Pine Creek Watershed Management Plan.

The primary goal of this initiative is to expand the use of agricultural conservation practices, which should lead to decreased sedimentation in rivers systems and improvements in aquatic resources. Secondarily, these practices should lead to increased soil retention and nutrient availability for farmers.

The initiative will target agricultural lands in Washington, Harrison, Crawford, and Floyd Counties, the only remaining area in Indiana where the Eastern Hellbender can be found and is currently being actively managed.

The project aims to work with all types of landowners including from forest ground, urban or specialty crop and traditional farmers to municipalities, to install conservation practices and engage in education and outreach efforts. The primary goal of this multi-state initiative is to address excess water as a resource concern by developing working lands type conservation practices and voluntarily establishing wetland easements.

These conservation efforts facilitate water storage, build community involvement, and improve water quality within the initiative focal region. In the first year, a steering committee will be formed that will use the existing Kankakee Work Plan to create an annual work plan with action items that the partnership can work towards. This initiative will seek to accomplish nutrient reduction goals in both participating states.

These goals outline efforts to reduce nutrient runoff from point and non-point sources alike, toward improving water bodies and downstream to the Mississippi River and ultimately the Gulf of Mexico. This initiative will further efforts of conservation, restoration and sustainable use of soil, water and wildlife on a watershed scale while encouraging partner groups to work with producers to meet or avoid the need for national, state, and local natural resource regulatory requirements.

The initiative goal is to install 3,000 acres of new conservation cover, two-miles of two-stage ditches, 800 acres of wetland easements, and 2500+ conservation practices to achieve nutrient reduction goals.

With the primary objective of preserving and protecting military mission readiness, operations, testing and training capabilities, the Southern Indiana Sentinel Landscape partners will also promote and support agricultural and working lands; provide for watershed and riparian corridor protections thus promoting landscape resiliency; sustain and restore forest lands through sustainable land management and protections; and ensure endangered, threatened and at-risk species protection through habitat preservation and restoration.

For more information visit: Southern Indiana | Sentinel Landscapes

The primary goal of the initiative is to develop and manage grassland and pollinator habitat needed by “At Risk” bird species. The initiative focuses regions located strategically throughout Indiana (IN) that contain both the greatest need for grassland habitats as well as the most potential to improve grassland habitats & populations of bird species that depend upon them.

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