While there are many important needs that arise when crafting a state budget, legislators and the Governor must remember the essential natural resources that allow Arizonans to thrive here in the first place—our lands and waters.

And it is vital that we maintain and protect them.

To do so, Audubon Southwest has outlined three key budget provisions that should be considered for inclusion into next fiscal year’s state budget (July 1, 2026 – June 30, 2027).

1. Invest in water security: To continue to adapt to our drier future, we must protect and stretch our water supplies in the quickest and most cost-effective ways—by investing in conservation, efficiency, reuse, groundwater recharge, and forest and watershed health.
   • $30 million for the Colorado River Protection Fund to deploy immediate water conservation to prop up reservoir levels in Lake Mead and to bolster in-state water supplies with forest health projects that protect our water supplies. We must act on the near-term emergency we face from the grim hydrology of this winter and spring in the Colorado River Basin.
   • And beyond the near-term needs on the Colorado River, there are successful existing state programs like the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority’s Water Conservation Grant Fund and Water Supply Development Revolving Fund; the Arizona Water Protection Fund; Invasive Plant (removal) Grants; Healthy Forest Initiative Grants; and the Water Irrigation Efficiency Program that could kickstart projects and make an immediate impact for communities around the state, if provided funding.
2. Support crucial state agencies: The state agencies tasked with protecting the state’s water quality and quantity—the Arizona Department of Water Resources and the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality—need adequate funding to do their job.
   • Maintain the current funding levels at the Arizona Department of Water Resources. With new Active Management Areas to implement and manage, along with ongoing negotiations and management decisions on the Colorado River, this is not the time to reduce  funding for this state agency tasked with safeguarding Arizona’s water supplies.
   • $9.5 million to the Water Quality Fee Fund will help the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality develop and maintain the state and federally mandated programs that  protect the quality of Arizona’s surface, ground, and drinking water.

3. Conserve landscapes. Audubon supports the following additional priorities:
   • Senate Bill 1677 would allocate $3 million to the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management to reduce flood and fire risk by strategically removing salt cedar and reestablishing native plants, restoring habitat along the Lower Gila River west of Phoenix and along the confluence of the Gila and Colorado Rivers, near Yuma. This bill unanimously passed the House Natural Resources, Energy, and Water Committee on March 24. It must be incorporated into the state budget to become a reality.
   • $100,000 for the maintenance and improvement of the Arizona Trail, which spans 800 miles, providing recreational opportunities and crossing important habitats for birds like Cooper’s Hawks and American Goshawks.
   • $1 million to the Arizona State Parks Heritage Fund, which helps to protect and promote our state’s historic, cultural, and natural treasures.

Stewarding Arizona’s lands and waters for generations to come is critical—for people, birds, fish, and other wildlife. We urge legislators to prioritize these funding needs to ensure we can adequately protect them.