The Northeast Fish and Wildlife Diversity Technical Committee (NEFWDTC) convened for their fall meeting September 19-22, 2011 in Greenville, NH at the Barbara C. Harris Camp and Conference Center with hosts John Kanter and the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. The NEFWDTC is composed of State Wildlife Diversity Program Managers or their designees from 13 northeastern states and D.C. The NEFWDTC provides leadership for fish and wildlife diversity for the northeast states.  

This meeting focused on the future direction, funding and outreach of Fish and Wildlife programs including the Regional Conservation Needs (RCN) Grant Program, State Wildlife Grants, North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperatives, and Threatened and Endangered Species.  Additionally, the meeting allowed participants to discuss objectives from the Albany II meeting and charges such as Climate Change.

The NEFWDTC provides technical oversight of the RCN program.  During this meeting, the team reviewed the proposals for the 2011 grant cycle and made their recommendations for which projects should receive funding.  As the RCN program has completed 4 grant cycles, several projects have completed their final products. The NEFWDTC took this opportunity to review completed projects and ask the following questions: Have we gotten what we asked / paid for?  Is what we asked for what we really need? Are the products or project outcomes useful – i.e., Are they helping move the NE Conservation Framework forward?  Additionally, the committee considered options for housing and distributing the data that is accumulating from the projects.  The grant monitoring process was also evaluated by the committee.