Hawaii Community Foundation’s Post

👏🏽Ho‘omaka‘i (congratulations) to the Mauna Kea Watershed Alliance (MKWA) and the Big Island Resource Conservation and Development Council, its fiscal agent, for recently being awarded the Bureau of Reclamation’s WaterSMART Cooperative Watershed Management Program grant! This past December, the Hawai‘i Community Foundations’ Hawaiian Islands Environmental Finance Center assisted MKWA with applying for this grant. 💦What is the WaterSMART program? The WaterSMART Cooperative Watershed Management Program is an $8.9 million investment from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to protect watershed health and build more resilient water supplies across the West. 💰What will MKWA and BIRCDC do with the funding? The MKWA in partnership with BIRCDC will update their Mauna Kea Watershed Management Plan on the Island. The Mauna Kea Watershed holds deep cultural significance for the people of Hawai‘i and is the primary water source for the Big Island. The project will create a 5-year action plan with full input from watershed partners and create a Wildfire Protection and Post-Fire Response Plan for all Alliance lands covering more than 416,000 acres. These actions will address resource concerns including impacts from invasive species, fungal infections affecting native trees that comprise the majority of forests on the island, habitat fragmentation, and wildfires, all which present major threats to island resources. The proposed efforts will involve federal and state agencies, private landowners, local communities, indigenous communities, agriculture, and environmental and natural resource nonprofit stakeholders. 👉🏽Learn more at https://lnkd.in/gXquT8f9 🌿What is HCF’s Hawaiian Islands Environmental Finance Center? The HIEFC is designed to provide various types of technical assistance to agencies, utilities, and communities in Hawai‘i that are working on projects related to Fresh Water Initiative goals by helping them apply for federal and non-federal funding that’s available. #FreshWaterInitiative

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