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This is the fourth phase of a collaborative
effort that started in 1993 with an initial focus on the endangered Florida panther. The
project has been guided by a 55-member Landowner Working Group (who, together, control
more than 600,000 acres of private lands) and 130-member Review Committee (representing
federal and state land management and wildlife agencies, conservation groups, animal
rights advocates, local government, Indian tribes, University of Florida and farm groups).
The purpose of the project has been to create new approaches and incentives for landowners
to protect wildlife habitats, wetlands and other natural resources on private lands that
include agricultural and forestry operations.
This phase of the project will focus on a
5,500-acre ranch and surrounding 10-county area of southwest Florida to develop a model Resource
Conservation Agreement and document how existing conservation programs at the federal,
state, local and private levels can be integrated and coordinated to leverage existing
dollars, and provide more comprehensive incentives to help farmers stay in business and
implement conservation practices to maintain wildlife habitats on their properties.
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Every hour, America loses over 100 acres of
farm and forest land to other uses (Source: USDA, Economic Resources Service, Urbanization
of Rural Land in the United States, Agricultural Economic Report 673, March 1994, p.
2).
This loss of farm land not only affects the quantity and quality of food
available to us but eliminates and destroys natural resources and habitats that support
wildlife. These diverse habitats are critical to the survival of many endangered species.
But many of these resources, habitats and endangered species are at risk.
For example, the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission estimates
that if the current trend of landowners to sell properties continues, it will destroy all
remaining habitat for the endangered Florida panther on private lands within the next 25
years -- or possibly sooner.
The Florida panther is not alone. Florida has more endangered species than
any other state except Hawaii and California but it cannot afford to buy or manage every
tract of land contributing to its environmental welfare. And while farmers may want to
protect wetlands or wildlife, they have a powerful inducement to sell the land for
development. In fact, the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission has concluded, some
private landowners are forced to sell their land just to satisfy estate taxes.
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American farmers produce the safest, cheapest, most abundant food in the
world today. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, one farmer feeds 113 people
every day. Moreover, privately-owned cropland, pasture and rangeland covers 942 million
acres, half the total land area of the U.S. (USDA/NRCS Natural Resources Inventory,
1992). Yet, the economic incentives farmers have to convert their land to other uses are
powerful.
A July 17, 1998 article in The New York Times reported that farm
debt in 1998 could reach $172 billion, the highest since the height of the farm crisis in
1985. The current market economy -- and the phase out of farm subsidies -- is giving
landowners a strong incentive to manage their land for the highest and best economic
return, which often translates into a more intense use or development. Intensive
development usually is at odds with natural resource protection. But land in Florida --
and many other states -- is valued on the number of housing units it will accommodate and
not on the land's ability to grow food or the value of its natural resources and wildlife
it harbors.
Landowners need effective incentives to maintain and protect
natural landscapes that harbor endangered species, wetlands, riparian zones and other
natural resources vital to the public interest.
In response, Florida Stewardship Foundation has worked for five years in
cooperation with University of Florida Institute for Food and Agriculture Sciences (IFAS),
private landowners, environmental groups, and all levels of government to develop
consensus on two approaches that will reward landowners for implementing cost effective
and affordable conservation options on their properties. By (1) drawing on existing
programs and (2) blending and expanding on these programs through a Resource
Conservation Agreement, reasonable payments and tax credits can be provided to a
landowner from government, in return for the landowner's agreement to commit to a
management plan lasting 20 or more years, to ensure that essential wildlife habitats and
resources are not destroyed.
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The objectives of this project are three-fold:
Increase the amount of land committed to the protection of habitats that
harbor threatened and endangered species and other resources vital to the public interest,
using an incentive-based program to attract participation by private landowners,
Reduce economic hardships on private landowners who maintain land for
agricultural uses, and
Encourage landowners to adopt property-wide management plans that
accommodate economic land uses while maintaining and protecting habitats and resources
that are essential for the continued survival of threatened and endangered species and
important to public health, safety and welfare.
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The first step is to develop
a model "Resource Conservation Agreement " for a parcel of private land that can
blend existing conservation tools and programs into a single, comprehensive, long-term
(but not permanent) management agreement to provide for the proper care and stewardship of
important wetlands, water resources and habitats over an extended period of time (say, up
to 20 years, with ongoing options -- and incentives -- to renew). The agreement will
include: a current property status report, resource inventory, "operation
document " to guide future agricultural uses of the property, and a plan describing
the management activities and practices that will be carried out.
Landowners will be offered a menu of incentives for participating in the
agreements. These incentives are being developed. They will include: annual per acre
management fees, federal estate tax relief, federal income and local property tax credits,
streamlined permitting, longer-term permits, incentive payments for entering into
longer-term agreements or perpetual conservation easements, and bonus payments for habitat
enhancements, for allowing ongoing scientific research or for allowing periodic public
access. Each incentive package will be tailored to specific needs of individual properties
and landowners and matched to the capabilities of the participating agencies to provide
payments and/or other incentives.
Following successful execution of the proposed Resource Conservation
Agreement, FSF will develop guidelines on how similar agreements might be applied to
other properties.
This step currently is underway on a 5,500-acre ranch in central Florida.
Two other Florida landowners also have offered their properties as models. These include a
10,000-acre ranch south of Orlando and a 13,000 acre timber stand (owned by one of the
major timber companies) in north Florida.
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The second step is to document and better understand how
existing conservation programs at the federal, state, local and private levels can be
blended -- and, possibly, enhanced -- to provide a simple, one-stop application procedure
for farmers, leverage existing dollars, and provide more comprehensive incentives to help
farmers stay in business and implement conservation practices to maintain wildlife
habitats and other natural resources on their properties.
To complete this step, the following actions will be taken:
The conservation programs that are available
through federal, state, local and private sources in the 10-county project area will be
cataloged and compared.
As many options as possible -- to fit
different needs and situations that are dictated by localized differences in hydrology,
habitat and species distribution, and landowner motivations and desires -- will be
identified.
Opportunities for integrating and
coordinating programs -- to get more conservation value for each dollar spent and increase
incentives for landowner participation -- will be explored.
Finally, ways to make information on
existing programs available in a simpler, easy-to-use, easy-to-understand and
easy-to-apply format will be stressed.
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The resulting products will consist of:
Recommendations for a one-stop, one-step or
simplified application process that can quickly and easily open the door for a landowner
to all existing conservation programs that might apply to his or her property -- and alert
agencies to the landowner's interest in pursuing conservation activities on a short term,
long term or perpetual basis.
An interactive search engine that can
be accessed through the Internet and added to any web site to locate and link together
existing information -- and pertinent agencies, organizations and people -- in a simple,
one-stop, easy-to-use manner.
This will be more than an effort to compile
extensive information on conservation tools or create an information database. The people
who know how to apply, integrate and adapt existing conservation tools so site-specific
situations and differing landowner needs can be accommodated are key to success. So people
will be a major part of this effort, as well. The resulting products will not duplicate
any existing database or resource, but will build on all available information resources
to provide users with a set of interactive tools to help them pursue conservation
activities in a simple, easy-to-use manner.
As one project partner said: "A farmer wants the sausage; he
doesn't want to watch it being made." The purpose of this part of the project is to
give a farmer who is interested in conservation a ready-to-use opportunity to move
forward, not a long list of applications to fill out, agencies to visit and program
descriptions to interpret. Hence, the focus will be on ways to save time and money and
reduce confusion and frustration to encourage more private landowners to participate in
existing conservation programs.
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In step three, FSF plans to carry out an educational
program to acquaint as many people as possible with the resource conservation tools that
are available, the ways in which they can be integrated and how the Resource
Conservation Agreement concept can be used as an "umbrella" to adapt
existing tools to the specific needs of different properties, habitats and landowners.
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Finally, FSF will develop a model Resource
Conservation Agreement package. This package will be designed to show how the project
results can be used by any government agency or land trust in the U.S. It will include a
copy of the Resource Conservation Agreement developed in step one. It will describe
the simplified application process and interactive search engine developed in step
two. And it will build on the results of the project workshops to provide guidance on how
existing conservation tools can be combined -- or supplemented and extended -- to provide
landowners with incentives to protect natural resources important to public health and
welfare and the public interest, such as aquifer recharge areas that replenish public
drinking water supplies and habitats that harbor listed species.
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It is anticipated that the project will
produce the following results within two to five years:
Implementation of a simple, one-stop
application procedure that makes it easier for landowners, agency representatives and
other interested organizations and individuals to access information on existing
conservation programs, understand how they can be combined, leverage existing dollars, and
provide more comprehensive incentives to help farmers stay in business and implement
conservation practices to maintain the wildlife habitats and other natural resources on
their properties.
Implementation of a workable, easily
understood Resource Conservation Agreement that will combine existing conservation
programs -- and, possibly, add incentives in the form of per acre management fees and tax
credits -- to reward private landowners for maintaining wildlife habitats and other
natural resources, thus eliminating the temptation for a landowner to convert the habitats
to other uses -- such as more intensive farm operations, homesites or golf courses -- in
order to obtain a higher economic return.
Implementation of series of Resource
Conservation Agreements on large property holdings that will set long-term management
goals for critical habitats without purchasing land, taking it off local property tax
rolls and removing valuable economic activities, such as commercial forestry and
agricultural production, from the lands.
Expansion of the project to other parts of
Florida and the U.S.
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Florida Stewardship Foundation (FSF) has
successfully completed Phases 1, 2 and 3 of this project. Phase 1 - Developing the
Concept - began in 1993 and focused on developing a conceptual plan outlining how
incentives can be provided to protect essential habitat for the endangered Florida
panther. A 44-member review committee of representatives from governmental agencies,
environmental groups and private landowners fully endorsed the project.
Two publications and a video were produced. A Landowner's Strategy for
Protecting Florida Panther Habitat on Private Lands in South Florida: A Project Report
is a 64-page report describing an incentive based conceptual plan for compensating
landowners to protect panther habitat on private land. Incentive-Based Programs and
Techniques to Protect Natural Resources and Florida Panther Habitat on Private Lands: A
Field Manual describes numerous techniques currently available to land managing
agencies and landowners. Panthers and Private Lands: A Cooperative Approach is a
12-minute video produced by the Florida Game and Fresh Water Commission explaining the
importance of the project.
Phase 2 - Refining the Concept - presented the plan to landowners
whose properties contain Priority 1 and 2 panther habitats. The plan received overwhelming
support. FSF then facilitated workshops and brought together landowner working groups and
review committee members to address issues and concerns of the committee. A web site was
established to coordinate all input and discussion on the project. The committee created a
vehicle to carry out the ideas and developed a Private Habitat Conservation Lease
based on standard agriculture leases, which has since evolved into the proposed Resource
Conservation Agreement.
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The committee also expanded the initial focus
on panthers to any resource on private lands that benefits the environment, including
habitats for threatened and endangered species, wetlands and aquifer recharge areas. As a
result, the project was temporarily renamed Private Habitats: Havens for Threatened
& Endangered Species and Phase 3 was launched in January 1998.
Phase 3 - Working Toward Consensus - was dedicated to addressing
all issues and concerns that had been raised by the diverse interests represented in the
project and developing proposals to address these concerns. This phase also was
successful.
A landowner in DeSoto County, Florida volunteered to be the first to test the Resource
Conservation Agreement concept. The long-term agreement will cover 4,500 acres of native
habitat and 1,000 acres of improved pasture. This agreement -- and the way in which the
agreement could be applied to other properties -- was discussed at two workshops in May
1998 and October 1998, where consensus was reach on all remaining issues, and on the
content and form of the proposed Resource Conservation Agreement. The USDA, Natural
Resources Conservation Service volunteered to conduct a resource inventory and biological
survey of the property to be used as the basis for the agreement. A three-person team
began this inventory and survey in September 1998 and completed it in December 1998.
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FSF received a Resolution from the Florida House of Representatives in
April 1998 fully supporting the project. As part of the project's educational campaign,
FSF mailed information nationwide to 2,000 state and national agricultural groups,
conservation organizations and university researchers and state wildlife agencies seeking
feedback. Responses were extremely supportive of the project objectives. FSF also held
meetings in July 1998 with officials of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and USDA's
Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to discuss how the project could be shaped
to better help these agencies build on existing programs to improve incentives to private
landowners for resource protection efforts.
The name of the project was once again modified to reflect this feedback
and the project's broadened purpose. It now is called Private Lands: Partners in
Conserving America's Resources.
Another publication and video were produced: The
Resource Conservation Agreement Briefing Book is based on the consensus documents that
emerged from the project workshops. These include an outline of the proposed Resource
Conservation Agreement, proposed guidelines for applying the agreement to individual
parcels of property and response forms for readers to provide input and help in shaping
the program to meet needs in different parts of the U.S. Private Lands: Partners in
Conserving America's Resources is a 13-minute video that features stunning wildlife
and nature scenes, all taken on private lands in Florida, as well as interviews with
private landowners and biologists who describe the project's objectives C and its
implications for wildlife management on private lands.
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At the conclusion of Phase 3:
The Florida Cattlemen's Association ordered 250 copies of the project
video, Private Lands: Partners in Conserving America's Resources for distribution
to state agencies and legislators;
The Florida Farm Bureau Federation took the lead in proposing amendments
to the state's land acquisition program to earmark moneys for use in creating management
agreements with private landowners for conservation purposes and for entering into
Resource Conservation Agreements;
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association began working on steps to
implement the program at the national level; and
The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service began to explore ways in
which the Resource Conservation Agreement program could be implemented as part of the
existing Conservation Reserve Program. In addition:
Several agencies in Florida and are actively seeking ways in which
private landowners can be induced to care for the natural resources on their properties
using concepts from the project, such as service contracts and fixed-term management
agreements.
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This project will complement work being undertaken by the Florida
Department of Environmental Protection to implement ecosystem management in Florida. This
project and Ecosystem Management both seek a common goal: effective, coordinated
management that recognizes the important role all types of habitats have in sustaining a
healthy ecosystem. They also favor:
Finding alternatives to the current regulatory approach to addressing
environmental problems;
A team approach to multi-agency issues;
Improved intergovernmental coordination;
A change in emphasis from enforcement to compliance monitoring;
An increasing role for private landowners; and
Offering incentives to reward and encourage private stewardship efforts.
(More information on Ecosystem Management in Florida is available from Pam
McVety, Executive Coordinator, Office of Ecosystem Management, Florida Department of
Environmental Protection, 3900 Commonwealth Blvd., MS 46, Tallahassee, FL 32399-3000, or
you can access the department's World Wide Web Home Page -- http:\\www.dep.state.fl.us.)
The project also complement's EPA's "reinvention
activities" to build better partnerships to address environmental protection on
private lands throughout the U.S. This is because the project entails several distinct
action steps to place more emphasis on private stewardship and sustainable agricultural
practices, as a means of protecting wetlands, wildlife habitat and other natural
resources ... and producing net environmental benefits to the public interest which
supplement and enhance the benefits attained by land acquisition and traditional
regulatory approaches.
As an April 16, 1995 editorial in the Tampa Tribune observed:
Florida cannot afford to
either buy or manage every tract of land that contributes to its environmental welfare.
Attempting to outlaw all destructive uses of these lands would certainly incite the wrath
of property owners and generate costly lawsuits. The surest way to preserve Florida's
natural heritage is to show landowners that conservation is in their best interest. By
doing that, [this project] is not only helping to preserve a critical ... Florida resource
but serving as a model for how to save the best of Florida.
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The Landowner Working Group represents major
private landowners in the 10-county project area. The Review Committee represents
leaders in major local, state and national organizations and government agencies
interested in -- or affected by -- efforts to conserve wildlife habitats and natural
resources on private lands in Florida and the U.S. Other project contacts include:
165 landowners with Priority 1 or Priority 2 habitat for the
endangered Florida panther
300 directors/leaders of state game and fish departments, state and
national conservation organizations and university research programs
100 state and national ag and forestry organizations
Total Project Participants & Contacts = 750
Florida Stewardship Foundation has been working for the past five
years with private landowners who conduct agricultural and forestry operations on their
properties. The most important group among these landowners are America’s ranchers,
who control 524 million acres -- 35% of all the non-federal land in the U.S. Second are
farmers, who control 382 million acres plus 36 million acres enrolled in the
USDA/NRCS’s Conservation Reserve Program -- 28% of non-federal land. Third are timber
companies and private woodland owners, who control 395 million acres -- 27% of non-federal
land. Together, these three groups control 1,341 million acres -- 90% of all non-federal
land in the U.S. (Source: USDA/NRCS Natural Resources Inventory, 1992)
These three groups are well represented in the 10-county area in
southwest Florida that will be the focus for this project. Five of the counties (DeSoto,
Glades, Hardee, Hendry and Highlands) are rural inland counties, whose economies are
primarily dependent upon agriculture. Five are coastal counties (Charlotte, Collier, Lee,
Manatee and Sarasota), that are experiencing strong urban growth pressures along with
conflicts between urban and rural uses and impending losses of open space and habitat. One
of the counties — Collier County — was rated by the U.S. Census Bureau as the
fastest-growing urban area in the U.S. between 1980 and 1990. Consequently, many issues
and constituencies that potentially could be addressed by this project in other areas of
the nation are represented in the target area.
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Step 1 will be started during FY 1998-99 and
completed during the first six months of FY 1999-2000. Step 2 will occur in the
second half of FY 1999-2000. Dissemination of public education information through step 3
will be conducted as follows: (1) two project updates, one in first half of FY 1998-99 and
one in second half FY 1999-2000, and (2) final project results disseminated summer 2000.
Step 4 will be completed during the second half of 2000.
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