Fairbanks Farmer Signs First Private Land Wetlands Easement in State

September 30, 2005, Palmer, AK - Today the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) announced that Alaska’s first perpetual easement on private land to benefit wetland wildlife and waterfowl has been signed into contract. Noel Napolilli, a Fairbanks farmer, has enrolled 15.668 acres of ecologically unique wetland pasture in NRCS’s Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP).

WRP is a voluntary program that provides an opportunity for landowners to receive financial incentives to restore, protect, and enhance wetlands they own while retiring wet, unproductive land from agricultural uses. 

Napolilli’s land will be permanently retired from grazing and mowing and dedicated to providing resident and migratory waterfowl an important area for feeding, loafing and rearing. Species that utilize the area include geese, sand hill cranes, shorebirds, gulls and several duck species. Moose and fox also use the area.

Mr. Napolilli and NRCS will continue to work together to enhance the site’s wetland values include improving at least two shallow-water areas, selective brush and timber control, and erecting a fence to protect the habitat.

While 1.5 million acres are protected by WRP nationally, today’s contract may be the first to include a pingo–a landscape feature formed when underground permafrost ice lenses push up to the surface, melts and then settles to form a lake.  The Napolilli WRP project area contains a two-acre pingo.

Landowners interested in learning more about WRP or NRCS’s other conservation programs can call the Fairbanks field office at 907-479-3159 or  log on to www.ak.nrcs.usda.gov.

The Natural Resources Conservation Service puts nearly 70 years of experience to work in assisting people to conserve, maintain, and improve our natural resources and environment. NRCS works in partnership with local conservation districts serves almost every county in the nation, and the Caribbean and Pacific Basin. Participation in NRCS programs is voluntary.

Note to reporters: Bill Wood, State Wildlife Biologist, is available for comments by calling 761-7761.  

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