Walmart partners with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to bring funding to for the big box store’s Acres for America Program.
The program is a nearly two-decade-long partnership between the two, leveraging millions in public and private matching funds for conservation.
The latest round of funding awards 5.6 million through 10 grants to permanently protect more than 148,000 acres of wildlife across nine states, enhance community recreation opportunities and improve landscape connectivity for the benefit of wildlife
Executive director and CEO of the foundation said these grants are set apart from others because of “the human dimension” through projects that engage communities with the outdoors and projects that “include native nations.”
Several Acres for America projects in this slate of grants involve Indigenous people and native nations in the conservation and stewardship of their ancestral land.
Yet, This year’s largest project will acquire a conservation easement of more than 73,000 acres of vast forest, coldwater lakes, trout streams, and wetlands in Michigan.
In CA, 6.5 million will go towards a conservation easement on 11,000 acres of mature redwood timberland adjacent to Redwood National Park to “create a buffer…and prevent future development and fragmentation of the highly trafficked area.”
Since 2005 the program has helped protect over 2 million acres, funding more than 119 projects and has leveraged Walmart’s $68.5 million investment with matching contributions that have generated a total conservation impact of more than $1.1 billion. A complete list of the 2023 grants made through the Acres for America program is available here.
