Playa Lakes Joint Venture Partnership Base Operations | F20AS00063

Opportunity Information: Apply for F20AS00063

The Playa Lakes Joint Venture Partnership Base Operations opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number F20AS00063) is a discretionary funding announcement from the U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service (Southwest Region) to support the core, day-to-day operations of the Playa Lakes Joint Venture (PLJV). Rather than focusing on a single on-the-ground restoration project, this funding is aimed at maintaining the partnership capacity that makes regional bird habitat conservation work possible, including staffing and the essential functions that keep the joint venture effective and coordinated across many partners and jurisdictions.

Joint ventures were originally created to help implement the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, and they function as regional, self-directed conservation partnerships that bring together federal, state, and local agencies, corporations, and a broad range of non-governmental conservation organizations. The central idea is that migratory birds cross political boundaries, so habitat protection and population objectives have to be addressed at a landscape scale and coordinated among many organizations. Within that structure, joint ventures set and pursue multiple goals at local, regional, and continental scales to sustain migratory bird populations, including waterfowl and other bird species that depend on healthy wetland and upland habitats.

The announcement emphasizes that the joint venture model is science-driven and strategic. Joint ventures use biological planning to identify the needs of priority bird species, then translate that information into landscape conservation designs that show where habitat work will produce the greatest benefit. Those conservation designs are intended to guide partners toward the highest priority areas and the level of conservation effort needed to sustain healthy populations. The work is framed as an adaptive resource management approach, often described as strategic habitat conservation, which links planning and design with conservation delivery, monitoring, and research so that actions can be evaluated and improved over time.

For this particular opportunity, the Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking proposals specifically to provide base operations support for the Playa Lakes Joint Venture partnership. In practice, base operations typically means maintaining the staffing, coordination, technical capacity, and partnership functions that allow the joint venture to develop plans, align partner investments, support habitat project implementation by partners, and maintain the monitoring and science foundation that guides decisions. The broader context is that the Fish and Wildlife Service provides base operations support to a network of 21 joint ventures nationwide, and the PLJV is one of the joint ventures that receives this type of support.

The funding instrument is a cooperative agreement, which generally indicates the agency expects substantial involvement during the period of performance (for example, collaboration on work planning, coordination, deliverables, and oversight). The activity category is natural resources, and the CFDA number listed is 15.637. Eligibility is described as unrestricted, meaning it is open to any type of entity as allowed by the notice, subject to any clarifications in the announcement’s eligibility section.

Key administrative details included in the source information are: the opportunity was created March 5, 2020, with an original closing date of May 8, 2020. The listed award ceiling is $807,000. The expected awards field shows 0 in the provided data, which can sometimes reflect how the posting was configured rather than a firm statement about whether an award will be made, but the intent described in the narrative is that the Service is soliciting proposals for PLJV base operations support.

Finally, the notice cites the statutory authorities that underpin the Fish and Wildlife Service Joint Ventures Program, including the Fish and Wildlife Act of 1956 (as amended), the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act of 1958, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. It also points applicants and interested parties to the Fish and Wildlife Service joint venture information page for general background on migratory bird joint ventures.

• The Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Playa Lakes Joint Venture Partnership Base Operations" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.637.
• This funding opportunity was created on Mar 05, 2020.
• Applicants must submit their applications by May 08, 2020. (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 $807,000.00 in funding.
• 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 F20AS00063

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