Assistant Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett Will Highlight
Conservation Partnerships in Chesapeake Bay Region
as Models for Nation on Earth Day

Lynn Scarlett, Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget, will visit the Northern Chesapeake Bay in Maryland to showcase the DOI Coastal Program and Partners for Fish and Wildlife Projects and the possibilities of President Bush's Cooperative Conservation Initiative.

At Holly Beach Farm, she will examine a multi-partnered conservation/restoration effort including private landowners, The Conservation Fund, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Maryland Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service. Then she will cross the Bay to Kent Narrows, and travel by boat from the mouth of the Chester River up river to Chestertown, Conquest Beach and Chino Farms, sites of current and potential coastal public-private partnership projects.

"These Maryland partnership projects set an example for the rest of the nation on Earth Day," Scarlett says. "Projects such as these point the way to the new environmentalism, a path away from the conflict that characterized the old environmentalism and toward consensus. This is the path this administration will take." Scarlett says President Bush's proposed Cooperative Conservation Initiative will remove barriers to citizen participation and increase partnership projects.

To fund this initiative, the President is proposing $100 million in challenge grants to landowners, land-user groups, conservation groups, and local and state governments for conservation projects that advance the health of the land and benefit people.

Credentialed media who wish to tour Holly Beach Farm or other sites with Assistant Secretary Scarlett should contact Mike Slattery at 410-703-9667 or 410-573-4580.

The tour at Holly Beach will start at approximately 9:45 a.m.

For more information on other Department of Interior Earth Day events or the President's Cooperative Conservation initiative, call Joan Moody at 202-208-6416.

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