About WHPRP

Mission and Scope | Approach | Funding | Program Committee Members

Mission and Scope

The Wildlife Habitat Policy Research Program (WHPRP) is a results oriented program with the mission to develop and disseminate objective information and practical tools to accelerate the conservation of wildlife habitat in the United States.

The program emphasis is on developing the knowledge and tools relevant to conserving terrestrial and aquatic wildlife habitat, including both public and privately owned property.  The WHPRP serves the needs of policy makers, administrators, resource managers, practitioners, and landowners.  The results of the program are useful to all levels of government, as well as in the private sector, including private companies, conservation groups, professional organizations, and foundations.  The WHPRP maintains objective credibility by not engaging in the advocacy or implementation of any specific conservation policy or practice.

WHPRP includes research, analyses, assessments, syntheses, and the identification of new approaches for habitat conservation through sponsorship of specific projects in the natural sciences and social sciences including economics, law, and planning. The WHPRP focus is on work where the results can be used to directly improve practice, management, and policy.

The WHPRP's outputs are relevant to the implementation of the statutory State Wildlife Action Plans, which have the potential to help diverse constituencies work together to envision and protect a system of wildlife habitat in each state.  More information about the State Wildlife Action Plans can be found on the  Teaming with Wildlife website.

 Approach

The WHPRP is managed by the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE), a non-advocacy, nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the scientific basis for environmental decisionmaking, and is funded by a four year grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF).

The WHPRP uses competitively awarded grants to sponsor innovative projects by the best-qualified investigators in academia, government, companies, and nonprofit institutions across the nation.  Requests for Proposals (RFPs) are issued to conduct the projects, which are specifically defined to meet WHPRP objectives and are open to all applicants.  Submitted proposals are reviewed by external, independent panels of experts and evaluated for not only technical quality, but also practical value.

WHPRP has a Program Committee of leaders from diverse backgrounds and affiliations such as conservation organizations, state and federal agencies, companies, and universities ( Program Committee ).  The Committee meets twice yearly to establish program objectives, define projects to address those objectives, monitor progress and assist with communication and outreach activities.  Members of the Program Committee are neither eligible for WHPRP grants nor serve on the external review panels that evaluate grant proposals.

NCSE used a multi-stakeholder approach to develop the initial research agenda for the WHPRP.  Beginning in November 2005, NCSE conducted a survey of key stakeholders in the wildlife habitat conservation community to establish a baseline about what research is required to improve habitat conservation in the United States.  This survey produced a core set of questions which were then used to inform the dialogue at the Wildlife Habitat Research Options Workshop, held in March 2006.  At this workshop, a diverse subset of the survey participants were brought together to develop initial options for the WHPRP Program Committee to consider in developing the research agenda for the program ( Workshop Report )

The Program Committee has identified some major barriers to effective implementation of the State Wildlife Action Plans, including:

• Gaps in the understanding of scientific and policy questions related to habitat conservation
• Insufficient transformation of research results into usable information
• Lack of tools to measure and evaluate progress
• Inadequate communication across sectors within the conservation community

The WHPRP successfully issued three sets of grants, the final reports of the third round are currently being completed.

 Program Funding

The Wildlife Habitat Policy Research Program (WHPRP) is generously funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF).  The program is just one part of the organization's larger efforts to improve wildlife habitat conservation in the United States.  To learn more about the DDCF Environment Program and its efforts to aid in the completion of a wildlife habitat conservation system for the United States, please visit  www.ddcf.org.