The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife  was recently granted $466,356 from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant Program to fund the Cousins River Field and Marsh Conservation Project.

The project, one of 24 in the nation to receive grants of up to $1 million, will protect 42.7 acres of coastal wetland habitat within the Cousins River Marsh system in Yarmouth.

The grants are funded through import duties collected from the sale of recreational fishing equipment, boats, electric motors, and motorboat and small engine fuels under the Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration Act of 1950, according to the program’s website.