Notice of CESU Funding Opportunity Everglades Ecosystem Restoration and Management | P17AS00174

Opportunity Information: Apply for P17AS00174

The Notice of CESU Funding Opportunity titled "Everglades Ecosystem Restoration and Management" (Funding Opportunity Number P17AS00174) is a discretionary funding opportunity from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, focused on supporting research and applied science that directly informs restoration planning and assessment in and around Everglades National Park. The South Florida Natural Resource Center at Everglades National Park is seeking proposals that tackle high-priority management questions, especially work that involves information synthesis (pulling together existing datasets and findings into usable conclusions) and modeling (forecasting, scenario testing, and decision-support tools). The overall intent is to strengthen the park and its partners ability to restore and sustain Everglades ecosystems, while improving readiness to mitigate, reduce, or avoid ecological damage caused by unmanaged drivers and future disturbance events.

Funding is provided through a Cooperative Agreement, which generally means the National Park Service expects to be actively involved during the project rather than simply issuing a grant with minimal federal participation. The opportunity falls under activity areas tied to education, environment, and natural resources, and it is listed under CFDA 15.945. The agency anticipates making about 7 awards, with an award ceiling of up to $500,000 per award. Proposals were required to be submitted by email, using the addresses specified in the full NOFO materials, with an original closing date of May 11, 2017.

Eligibility is limited to a specific set of applicants: Principal Investigators affiliated with five Regional Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units (CESU) Networks. While the eligibility category is broadly listed as "Others," the NOFO clarifies that the competition is targeted to those CESU network participants and their investigators, reflecting the CESU program model of federal-academic partnerships aimed at delivering actionable science for resource management.

The research priorities are organized into six broad topics, each representing major areas where park managers need better evidence, synthesis, or predictive tools to guide restoration decisions and evaluate outcomes. The first topic centers on Everglades restoration actions and their effects along the boundaries of Everglades National Park, emphasizing how interventions and management decisions outside or adjacent to the park can influence conditions within park lands and waters. The second topic addresses estuaries and coastal wetlands of the Everglades, recognizing that coastal interfaces are sensitive to changes in freshwater delivery, sea level, storms, salinity dynamics, and other stressors that can alter habitat quality and ecosystem function.

A third emphasis area is exotic invasive species, a persistent challenge in South Florida ecosystems where non-native plants and animals can reshape habitats, disrupt food webs, and undermine restoration outcomes. The fourth topic focuses on biodiversity and rare, threatened, and endangered species, indicating interest in work that improves understanding of species status, habitat needs, limiting factors, and how restoration actions affect at-risk wildlife and plant communities. The fifth topic expands beyond natural resources into cultural resources, highlighting that restoration planning and park stewardship also require understanding, documenting, and protecting archeological, historical, and traditionally significant resources that may be vulnerable to environmental change and management actions. The sixth topic covers ecosystem services and human ecology, reflecting a need to connect ecological restoration to human benefits and impacts, such as water quality, fisheries, recreation, coastal protection, and the ways communities interact with and depend on Everglades ecosystems.

Across all topics, the through-line is practical usefulness: projects should be designed to answer management-relevant questions, improve assessment of restoration progress, and provide tools or synthesized knowledge that supports decision-making under uncertainty. The full NOFO (referenced as being available in the related documents) contains the specific elements and key issues under each topic, along with submission details and any additional requirements that applicants needed to follow.

• The Department of the Interior, National Park Service in the education, environment, natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Notice of CESU Funding Opportunity Everglades Ecosystem Restoration and Management" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.945.
• This funding opportunity was created on Apr 10, 2017.
• Applicants must submit their applications by May 11, 2017 Applications must be submitted via e-mail to the addresses listed in the full NOFO attached under the Related Documents Tab.. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $500,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 7 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

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