​Acres for America Expands

Acres for America, the ground-breaking conservation program sponsored by NFWF and Walmart, has announced two new projects to protect important habitat for fish, wildlife and plants. The sites, in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas and along the Rio Grande near Albuquerque, bring the total acres protected through the program to almost 700,000. Now in its eighth year, Acres for America conserves the places that native species need to thrive.  It includes 45 projects across the U.S.

The program began with a pledge: to protect one acre of conservation land for every acre occupied by Walmart’s U.S. facilities. With an initial $35 million commitment, Walmart expected to enroll an estimated 138,000 acres in the program by 2015. Since then, however, the program has greatly surpassed that goal, permanently protecting more than five times that number.

The Arkansas project on Beaver Lake is a 1,950-acre lakefront parcel that harbors a rich diversity of wildlife and plants native to the Ozark region. In addition to 12 different varieties of hardwood trees, it has several live springs, underground caves and aquifers. The site in New Mexico is part of Acres for America’s urban focus, which seeks to protect and restore priority wildlife habitat in cities. Just five miles south of Albuquerque, the property along the Rio Grande will form the basis for a proposed new National Wildlife Refuge.

Read more about NFWF's partnership with Walmart.