Description
The Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) is a program that promotes the coordination of Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) conservation activities with partners that offer value-added contributions to expand the ability to address on-farm, watershed, and regional natural resource concerns. The program seeks to co-invest with partners to implement projects that provide solutions to conservation challenges and measurably improve the resource concerns they seek to address. Partners use this notice to propose projects that improve natural resources in one or more states or focus on priority concerns in NRCS-designated Critical Conservation Areas (CCAs). The program provides funding to support both partners and producers, and proposals are selected through a competitive process based on their impact, the partner's contributions, and how well the partnership is managed.
• The program has three key principles: impact, partner contributions, and partnerships and management.
• Partners must have experience, expertise, and capacity to manage the partnership and project, provide outreach to producers, and quantify the environmental and economic outcomes of an RCPP project.
• The program provides funding for projects that use innovative approaches to leverage the federal investment in conservation, deploy a pay-for-performance conservation approach, and seek large-scale infrastructure investments that generate conservation benefits for agricultural producers and nonindustrial private forest owners.
• The program has a co-investment approach, where NRCS and partners collaborate to implement natural resource conservation activities.
• The program has a competitive selection process, where proposals are evaluated based on their impact, partner contributions, and partnership management.
• The program provides funding for technical assistance, including implementation technical assistance and enhancement technical assistance.