ATLANTA — Georgia Department of Natural Resources officials said the state’s updated Wildlife Action Plan is now in place and set to overhaul conservation strategies for the next 10 years.
According to GADNR, the overhauled conservation strategy is "now available in a dynamic digital format will guide wildlife work by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and partners statewide for the next decade."
Dr. Brett Albanese, an assistant chief in DNR’s Wildlife Conservation Section, led the revision effort, which has now been submitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for a federally-required review.
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Albanese said the state has “already started implementing it,” while waiting for federal officials to sign off.
That means, DNR said, that applications for loans for the 2025-2026 Conserve Georgia grants, handled by the Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Program, will be scored based on priority areas and conservation actions identified in the updated plan.
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The first Georgia Wildlife Action Plan was created in 2005 and has been updated every 10 years since. The 2025 updated version will include guides for preservation work of hundreds of species native to the state.
Those species include gopher tortoises, tricolored bats and yellow pitcherplants.
“The revision forces us to take a hard look at species in our state to ensure we are focusing conservation efforts on the right species and habitats,” Albanese said. “It also gives us an opportunity to engage with the broader conservation community to tap into their knowledge and identify shared conservation priorities.”
During the two-year long revision process, officials said “scores of organizations, expert analysis and extensive public feedback” helped their teams identify more than 1,000 species “of greatest conservation need,” based on how important they were to global conservation, available data and each species status in the state.
To view the updated plan and learn more about the conversation efforts and the state’s approach, Georgia created a new website, which can be viewed here.
Here’s what state officials said the plan includes “at a glance:”
- Georgia’s State Wildlife Action Plan is a statewide strategy to conserve populations of native wildlife species and the natural habitats they need before these animals, plants and places become rarer and more costly to conserve or restore.
- Congress requires an approved plan for states to receive State Wildlife Grants, the main federal funding source for states to conserve nongame – animals not legally fished for or hunted.
- Plans must be updated every 10 years. Georgia DNR’s Wildlife Conservation Section coordinates updates. But the process involves more than 100 partners and stakeholders, from conservation groups and agencies to universities and private landowners.
- DNR submitted the 2025 revision to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for review in June. The review, which could take months, will ensure the plan meets congressional requirements but will not change the plan’s species or priority areas.
- Created in 2005, Georgia’s Wildlife Action Plan has been revised every 10 years, as required. The latest revision includes an online tool to track conservation projects and the Wild Georgia Conservation Hub, a new website to explore plan data. The revised plan also identifies 1,062 “species of greatest conservation need” and the habitats essential for conserving them.
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