The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a final land protection plan Tuesday that is to guide the expansion of the Roanoke River National Wildlife Refuge.
The plan for the Roanoke River refuge is one of four land protection plans the Department of the Interior officials announced this week that will “allow for the voluntary conservation of up to 1.13 million acres of wildlife habitat in North Carolina, New Mexico and Texas.”
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The Biden-Harris administration said its America the Beautiful Initiative is investing in the National Wildlife Refuge System, which Fish and Wildlife Service oversees. The initiative calls for the conservation of at least 30% of lands and waters by 2030.
In addition to the Roanoke River refuge, plans were released for the Aransas and Big Boggy national wildlife refuges, both in Texas, and the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge on the Texas-New Mexico border.
Officials said the release of the final land protection plan is to guide property acquisitions “but does not add acreage to existing refuge ownership.”
“The National Wildlife Refuge System and the tremendous work of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service play an invaluable role in providing vital habitat for wildlife species, offering outdoor recreation access to the public, and bolstering climate resilience across the country,” Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.
The Roanoke River National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1991 to protect the forests in the Roanoke River floodplain, and is considered to be the largest intact, and least disturbed, bottomland forest ecosystem remaining in the mid-Atlantic region, according to the department.
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The refuge currently is 21,313 acres and has an acquisition boundary of 33,000 acres.
The plan approves expanding the acquisition boundary to up to 287,090 acres of floodplain habitat along a 137-mile stretch of the Roanoke River, from Weldon in Halifax County to the mouth of the river at the Albemarle Sound.
As part of the expansion, Fish and Wildlife Service will work with willing property owners to expand refuge boundaries through fee title or voluntary easement acquisitions and establish a 287,090-acre Conservation Partnership Area for state, local, private, and federal partners to “work together toward a common vision for conservation.”
Acquisitions for the Roanoke River refuge will be within Bertie, Washington, Martin, Halifax and Northampton counties.
The expansion is “to protect the integrity of the floodplain forest and to benefit rare and at-risk species, including Atlantic sturgeon, cerulean and Swainson’s warblers and bald eagles,” officials said. “Wild turkeys, wood ducks, mallards and white-tailed deer that make eastern North Carolina a recreational paradise will flourish with more land set aside for protection.”
