Posted on Sun, Jul. 02, 2006
OUTDOORS
New leader has Ducks Unlimited expanding reach
By PAT ROBERTSON
Columnist
THE NEW CHAIRMAN of South Carolina Ducks Unlimited is on a mission to conserve more habitat in the state, not just for waterfowl, but for all wildlife species, including a vast area east of Columbia.
“Our goal is to get more volunteers for DU, get more dollars and preserve more habitat,” said Columbia attorney Bill Short, who took over the reins of SCDU in March from outgoing state chairman Mario Insabella of Spartanburg.
SCDU was tops in the nation in dollars raised in the fiscal year that ended Friday. At the 69th annual National DU Convention in Phoenix last month Short accepted the Silver Award in the Pintail Flight, which is based on the number of members in the state organization.
The state DU organization has nearly 14,000 members who raised more than $1 million for DU projects last year. SCDU has been a major force in conserving 120,597 acres of wildlife habitat in South Carolina alone. DU has protected more than 11 million acres on the North American Continent.
Short said South Carolina DU will be a strong player in the Wetlands for Tomorrow Campaign — an effort to raise $1.7 billion over the next five years to save North America’s wetlands — which was launched this year by Ducks Unlimited and its foundation, the Wetlands America Trust.
In South Carolina, Short will lead DU efforts for the Three Rivers Initiative, an ACE Basin-type project in the Midlands which will serve as a buffer to the Congaree National Park.
The Three Rivers Initiative, which involves the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources and staff biologists from Ducks Unlimited’s South Atlantic Field Office in Charleston, will seek to preserve wildlife habitat in the area around the confluence of the Congaree and Wateree Rivers, which meet to form the Santee River, and for a considerable distance up those rivers.
Part of the funding will come from Ducks Unlimited’s unique way of leveraging money for conservation projects. A bronze sponsorship, for instance, can preserve one acre of wildlife habitat. That level of membership costs $250, which can then be leveraged up to seven times and sometimes even more through DU’s partnerships. When it is leveraged seven times to around $1,750, that can be used to acquire conservation easements or, in some cases, buy the land outright.
“We are 18 months into the Ducks Unlimited state license plate program and so far we’ve raised $50,000 net,” Short said. “We’ve not yet asked for an allocation from DNR because we want to get that figure up to $100,000. Then we can leverage that money ... and it can be spent in South Carolina.”
The Three Rivers initiative will depend heavily on conservation easements. South Carolina already leads the nation in conservation easements established or partnered on by Ducks Unlimited, with six easements completed on 5,700 acres in the 2005-06 fiscal year and another 15,000 acres of easements in development this year in the state.
DU has also restored almost 1,800 acres of public lands on the Santee National Wildlife Refuge, Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge and the DNR’s Broad River Waterfowl Management Area and it joined in the S.C. Partners Program to restore 750 acres of wetlands on private lands. About 5,000 acres of projects are planned for fiscal year ‘07 on the DNR’s Santee Coastal Reserve and the ACE Basin National Wildlife Refuge.
Since 1985, DU has contributed approximately $3.8 million to protect, restore, and enhance over 103,000 acres in South Carolina.
The organization also protects breeding habitat in northern states and Canada. Since 2000, South Carolina has provided $244,126 to conserve 33,108 acres and provide management assistance on 628,546 acres of waterfowl habitat in Ontario. Money from S.C. grassroots fundraising is also spent heavily in the Great Lakes/Atlantic Region and the Western Boreal Forest in Canada, areas that are critical nesting sites for birds that winter or travel through South Carolina in the fall.
An attorney with Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd, P.A., Short is a past president and serves on the board of the Carolina Chapter of the Turnaround Management Association. He is a former President of the predecessor to the South Carolina Law Bankruptcy Association and is a certified specialist in Bankruptcy/Debtor-Creditor Law by the Supreme Court of South Carolina.
An avid waterfowler who has a passion for and great understanding of the resource, Short said the key message is: “It is not necessarily about duck hunting. It’s about preserving habitat.”
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate...s/14950603.htm
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