I 
113TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 1137 
To authorize the Secretary of the Interior, through the United States Fish 
and Wildlife Service, to conduct a Joint Venture Program to protect, 
restore, enhance, and manage migratory bird populations, their habitats, 
and the ecosystems they rely on, through voluntary actions on public 
and private lands, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MARCH 13, 2013 
Mr. KIND (for himself and Mr. WITTMAN) introduced the following bill; which 
was referred to the Committee on Natural Resources 
A BILL 
To authorize the Secretary of the Interior, through the 
United States Fish and Wildlife Service, to conduct a 
Joint Venture Program to protect, restore, enhance, and 
manage migratory bird populations, their habitats, and 
the ecosystems they rely on, through voluntary actions 
on public and private lands, and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Joint Ventures for 
Bird Habitat Conservation Act of 2013’’. 
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SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE. 
(a) FINDINGS.—Congress finds that— 
(1) migratory birds are of great ecological and 
economic value to the Nation, contributing to bio-
logical diversity, advancing the well-being of human 
communities through pollination, seed dispersal, and 
other ecosystem services, and bringing tremendous 
enjoyment to the tens of millions of Americans who 
study, watch, feed, or hunt these birds; 
(2) sustainable populations of migratory birds 
depend on the conservation, protection, restoration, 
and enhancement of terrestrial, wetland, marine, 
and other aquatic habitats throughout their ranges 
in the United States, as well as the rest of North 
America, the Caribbean, and Central and South 
America; 
(3) birds are good indicators of environmental 
health and provide early warning of the impacts of 
environmental change, helping to yield the most out 
of every dollar invested in conservation; 
(4) human and environmental stressors are 
causing the decline of populations of many migra-
tory bird species, many of them once common, and 
climate change will exacerbate the impacts of these 
stressors on migratory bird populations; 
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(5) the coordination of Federal, State, tribal, 
and local government natural resource conservation 
efforts and the formation of partnerships that in-
clude a diversity of nongovernmental conservation 
organizations, private landowners, and other relevant 
stakeholders is necessary to accomplish the conserva-
tion of migratory bird populations, their habitats, 
and the ecosystem functions they rely on; 
(6) hunters, through their purchase of Federal 
migratory bird hunting stamps and State hunting li-
censes, have long supported the conservation of mi-
gratory birds and their habitats in the United States 
through the various State and Federal programs 
that are supported by the fees charged for such pur-
chases; 
(7) the Department of the Interior, through the 
United States Fish and Wildlife Service, is author-
ized under a number of broad statutes to undertake 
many activities with partners to conserve natural re-
sources, including migratory birds and their habitat; 
(8) through these authorities, the Service has 
created and supported a number of joint ventures 
with diverse partners to help protect, manage, en-
hance, and restore migratory bird habitat through-
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out much of the United States and to conserve mi-
gratory bird species; 
(9) the North American Waterfowl Manage-
ment Plan, adopted by the United States and Can-
ada in 1986, with Mexico joining as a signatory in 
1994, was the first truly landscape-level approach to 
conserving migratory game birds and the wetland 
habitats on which they depend, and became the 
foundation for the voluntary formation of Joint Ven-
tures; 
(10) since the adoption of the North American 
Waterfowl Management Plan, joint ventures have ex-
panded their application to all native birds and other 
wildlife species that depend on wetlands and associ-
ated upland habitats, resulting in significant con-
servation benefits over the last 20 years; 
(11) States possess broad trustee and manage-
ment authority over fish and wildlife resources with-
in their borders, and have utilized their authorities 
to undertake conservation programs to conserve resi-
dent and migratory birds and their habitats; 
(12) consistent with applicable Federal and 
State laws, the Federal Government and the States 
each have management responsibilities affecting fish 
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and wildlife resources, and should work cooperatively 
in fulfilling these responsibilities; 
(13) other domestic and international conserva-
tion projects authorized under the Neotropical Mi-
gratory Bird Conservation Act (16 U.S.C. 6101 et 
seq.) and the North American Wetlands Conserva-
tion Act (16 U.S.C. 4401 et seq.), and additional 
bird conservation projects authorized under other 
Federal authorities, can expand and increase the ef-
fectiveness of the joint ventures in protecting and 
enhancing migratory bird habitats throughout the 
different ranges of species native to the United 
States; and 
(14) the voluntary partnerships fostered by 
these joint ventures have served as innovative models 
for cooperative and effective landscape conservation, 
with far-reaching benefits to other fish and wildlife 
populations, and similar joint ventures should be au-
thorized specifically to reinforce the importance and 
multiple benefits of these models to encourage 
adaptive resource management and the implementa-
tion of flexible conservation strategies in the 21st 
century. 
(b) PURPOSE.—The purpose of this Act is to estab-
lish a program administered by the Director, in coordina-
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tion with other Federal agencies with management author-
ity over fish and wildlife resources and the States, to de-
velop, implement, and support innovative, voluntary, coop-
erative, and effective conservation strategies and conserva-
tion actions to— 
(1) promote, primarily, sustainable populations 
of migratory birds, and, secondarily, the fish and 
wildlife species associated with their habitats; 
(2) encourage stakeholder and government 
partnerships consistent with the goals of protecting, 
improving, and restoring habitat; 
(3) establish, implement, and improve science- 
based migratory bird conservation plans and pro-
mote and facilitate broader landscape-level conserva-
tion of fish and wildlife habitat; and 
(4) coordinate related conservation activities of 
the Service and other Federal agencies to maximize 
the efficient and effective use of funds appropriated 
or otherwise made available to support projects and 
activities to enhance bird populations and other pop-
ulations of fish and wildlife and their habitats. 
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS. 
In this Act: 
(1) CONSERVATION ACTION.—The term ‘‘con-
servation action’’ means activities that— 
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(A) support the protection, restoration, 
adaptive management, conservation, or en-
hancement of migratory bird populations, their 
terrestrial, wetland, marine, or other habitats, 
and other wildlife species supported by those 
habitats, including— 
(i) biological and geospatial planning; 
(ii) landscape and conservation de-
sign; 
(iii) habitat protection, enhancement, 
and restoration; 
(iv) monitoring and tracking; 
(v) applied research; and 
(vi) public outreach and education; 
(B) are conducted on lands or waters 
that— 
(i) are administered for the long-term 
conservation of such lands or waters and 
the migratory birds thereon, including the 
marine environment; or 
(ii) are not primarily held or managed 
for conservation but provide habitat value 
for migratory birds; and 
(C) incorporate adaptive management and 
science-based monitoring, where applicable, to 
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