What can the Apple Teach the Orange? Lessons U.S. Land Trusts can Learn from the National Trust in the U.K.

The National Trust in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland is one of the oldest and most revered private land conservation organizations in the world. While the private land conservation movements in the United States and the United Kingdom began at a similar time and with similar tools, conservation attitudes and methods in the two countries diverged. Today, the National Trust dominates land conservation in the U.K. while the strength of the U.S. movement is the energy of over 1,500 smaller organizations operating at different scales across the country. Despite the differences, this project looks to the National Trust in England and concludes that three elements of the National Trust’s experience provide important insights for U.S. land trusts rethinking their programs as political and environmental change engulfs the planet. First, the National Trust has gone through several iterations in its understanding of general public benefit and public access to protected properties in a way that most U.S. land trusts have yet to do. Second, National Trust experience suggests that U.S. land trusts could become more engaged in land-use regulations rather than presenting themselves primarily as an alternative (private, compensated, voluntary) thereto. Finally, the National Trust’s approaches to balancing agricultural productivity with sustainability provide useful models to study and emulate in the management of working landscapes. Many of the lessons learned by the National Trust could enrich private land conservation in the United States in an era of government withdrawal from environmental protection and growing impacts of climate change

Modelling trade offs between public and private conservation policies

To reduce global biodiversity loss, there is an urgent need to determine the most efficient allocation of conservation resources. Recently, there has been a growing trend for many governments to supplement public ownership and management of reserves with incentive programs for conservation on private land. At the same time, policies to promote conservation on private land are rarely evaluated in terms of their ecological consequences. This raises important questions, such as the extent to which private land conservation can improve conservation outcomes, and how it should be mixed with more traditional public land conservation. We address these questions, using a general framework for modelling environmental policies and a case study examining the conservation of endangered native grasslands to the west of Melbourne, Australia. Specifically, we examine three policies that involve: i) spending all resources on creating public conservation areas; ii) spending all resources on an ongoing incentive program where private landholders are paid to manage vegetation on their property with 5-year contracts; and iii) splitting resources between these two approaches. The performance of each strategy is quantified with a vegetation condition change model that predicts future changes in grassland quality. Of the policies tested, no one policy was always best and policy performance depended on the objectives of those enacting the policy. This work demonstrates a general method for evaluating environmental policies and highlights the utility of a model which combines ecological and socioeconomic processes.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure

Protection of native bush by Waikato dairy farmers: A cultural perspective

Protection of native vegetation on private land is particularly important for biodiversity conservation because most of the conservation land in public ownership is 300m or more above sea level. It is thus representative of higher altitude ecosystems. Almost all New Zealand's lower altitude areas are in private ownership. Maintaining current levels of indigenous biodiversity means, in practice, persuading many of the nation's farmers and forest landowners to retain or restore native bush and wetlands on their land

Applying the Private Benefit Doctrine to Farmland Conservation Easements

Farmland or working-land conservation easements serve two purposes. One is charitable, to protect open space from development; the other is practical, to preserve the land in productive agricultural use. These purposes, however, create a tension in the easement itself that can force the land trust that holds the easement to choose between the two purposes when the easement, meant in part to protect the farm, threatens the farm\u27s continued viability. Neutral-impact amendments are amendments to working-land easements that allow farmers to improve farm production or viability without harming the conservation value of the easements. Such amendments seem beneficial: a land trust can advance one of its goals of keeping agricultural land productive–without sacrificing the other goal of preserving the conservation value of the land. By approving such an amendment, however, a land trust likely violates the private benefit doctrine and risks losing its tax-exempt status. This Note argues that the IRS should explicitly decide not to apply the private benefit doctrine to neutral-impact amendments of farmland and working-land conservation easements

Conserving tropical biodiversity via market forces and spatial targeting

The recent report from the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity [(2010) Global Biodiversity Outlook 3] acknowledges that ongoing biodiversity loss necessitates swift, radical action. Protecting undisturbed lands, although vital, is clearly insufficient, and the key role of unprotected, private land owned is being increasingly recognized. Seeking to avoid common assumptions of a social planner backed by government interventions, the present work focuses on the incentives of the individual landowner. We use detailed data to show that successful conservation on private land depends on three factors: conservation effectiveness (impact on target species), private costs (especially reductions in production), and private benefits (the extent to which conservation activities provide compensation, for example, by enhancing the value of remaining production). By examining the high-profile issue of palm-oil production in a major tropical biodiversity hotspot, we show that the levels of both conservation effectiveness and private costs are inherently spatial; varying the location of conservation activities can radically change both their effectiveness and private cost implications. We also use an economic choice experiment to show that consumers’ willingness to pay for conservation-grade palm-oil products has the potential to incentivize private producers sufficiently to engage in conservation activities, supporting vulnerable International Union for Conservation of Nature Red Listed species. However, these incentives vary according to the scale and efficiency of production and the extent to which conservation is targeted to optimize its cost-effectiveness. Our integrated, interdisciplinary approach shows how strategies to harness the power of the market can usefully complement existing—and to-date insufficient—approaches to conservation

Exploring Net Benefit Maximization: Conservation Easements and the Public-Private Interface

Gustanski and Wright talk about conservation easements and the public-private interface. The ease of application across varied lands coupled with the financial and tax-associated benefits of conservation easements have driven the popularity of their use in conserving private lands across the US. Conservation easements typically require sizeable public funding resources, which are provided through either direct public expenditures via diverse public programs established to promote the conservation of land or through tax benefits

Challenges and opportunities in biodiversity conservation on private land : an institutional perspective from Central Europe and North America

Private land is gradually emerging as a global biodiversity conservation strategy for its potential to complement the existing protected area model in its attempt to halt the global biodiversity loss. However, involving private lands in conserving a public good face continuous challenges. While examining landowners’ motivations for conserving their land is imperative to its success, it is equally important to assess how other stakeholder groups perceive private land conservation. In order to capture the diversity and contrasts in implementing private land conservation, this research focuses on investigating the managerial perspectives on the status of private land conservation in two countries: USA and Poland. The paper presents the results of twenty five in-depth interviews that were conducted in the two countries. The US context, with a longer history and experience, captured complex interactions and factors that influence private land conservation, including role of conservation policies, civic sector organizations, stakeholder collaboration, technical and financial support, and nonmonetary motivations of landowners. The Polish context however, was limited to the regulatory model and as such did not differentiate private land conservation from traditional protected areas. Additionally, the lack of voluntary initiatives along with adequate policies and lack of awareness on private land conservation at a national and local level contributed to limited scope and understanding on the subject. The two case studies highlight the context dependency of such a strategy and bring to focus some of the factors that should be addressed while adopting conservation on private land as a biodiversity conservation strategy

INVESTMENT IN SOIL CONSERVATION IN NORTHERN ETHIOPIA: THE ROLE OF LAND TENURE SECURITY AND PUBLIC PROGRAMS

Soil erosion seriously threatens the future agricultural productivity of Ethiopia's highlands. In analyzing the determinants of soil conservation investments there, this study goes beyond the conventional physical factors to examine institutional, social capital and public program effects. The double hurdle statistical analysis from 250 farms in the Tigray region reveals different causal factors for soil conservation adoption versus intensity of use. The determinants of adoption of soil conservation measures vary sharply between stone terraces and soil bunds. Physical propensity toward erosion (e.g., slope, slope shape and soil texture) and land suitability for conservation helped determine conservation investments in all cases. But institutional and social determinants of investment differed importantly between bunds and terraces. Long-term investments in stone terraces were associated with secure land tenure, labor availability, proximity to the farmstead, and learning opportunities via the availability of food-for-work projects. By contrast, short-term investments in soil bunds were strongly linked to insecure land tenure and the absence of food-for-work projects. Farm beneficiaries of public soil conservation programs were less likely to invest privately in either type of conservation practice. Social capital, as measured by farmer perception of community pressure to curb soil erosion, did not contribute significantly to either kind of conservation investment. The intensity of stone terrace adoption (measured as meters of terrace per hectare) was determined by expected returns but not by capacity to invest. Higher intensity of stone terrace construction was favored by fertile-but-erodible silty soils in (rainy) highland settings that offered valuable yield benefits from soil conservation. Intensity of terracing was also greater in remote villages where limited off-farm employment opportunities made construction costs relatively low. Previous research has highlighted the need for public policy interventions to supplement private incentives to make soil conservation investments in erosion-prone mountain areas. Our results highlight the importance of the right kind of public interventions. Direct public involvement in constructing soil conservation structures on private lands appears to undermine incentives for private conservation investments. When done on public lands, however, public conservation activities may encourage private soil conservation by example. Secure land tenure rights clearly reinforce private incentives to make long-term investments in soil conservation.Land Economics/Use,

Economic Approaches to Public and Private Land Conservation in the United States

This research is composed of two essays, both using economic approaches to evaluate land conservation in the United States. Essay I uses econometric methods to evaluate public lands, and Essay II uses New Institutional Economics to gain insight into private land conservation. Essay I is titled The Relationship Between Public Conservation Lands and Tourism Employment in the United States. This research examines the relationship between public conservation lands and the importance of tourism in United States counties. A spatial error model is used on three categories of conservation land: general public land, recreational land, and wilderness areas. A positive, significant relationship was shown between all three categories of conservation lands and the proportion of county employment in tourism. This research suggests that land conservation and economic development are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and that a stronger relationship between the tourism industry and conservation groups might be beneficial. Essay II is titled, Institutional Analysis Applied to United States Private Land Conservation. United States land conservation, once dominated by government agencies, is increasingly performed by land trusts and other private conservation groups. This activity often takes the form of a land trusts collaborating with private landowners in enacting conservation easements. The rapid growth in private land conservation can be explained in part with insights from institutional analysis. One branch of institutional analysis looks at how institutions, or the \u27rules of the game\u27, influence how organizations form and in turn push for institutional change. This can be used to explain how United States tax laws and conservation easement enabling statutes interacted with land trusts and other conservation organizations to enable the rapid growth of private land conservation. This research contains insights into organizational and institutional issues that may be useful to ecosystem managers and conservation planners. A multidisciplinary approach is increasingly emphasized as necessary to the future of ecosystem and biodiversity conservation. This research contributes insights from economics that can be used in this multidisciplinary effort

Private protected areas in Australia: current status and future directions

Despite the recognised importance of private land for biodiversity conservation, there has been little research into systems of private protected areas at a country-wide level. Here I look at definitions, legislation, ownership, management approaches and effectiveness, distribution and incentives provided to private protected areas in Australia. The term \u27private protected areas\u27, although increasingly used, still suffers from a lack of a clear and concise definition in Australia. Australian states and territories have legislation enabling the application of conservation covenants over private land; covenants being the primary mechanism to secure conservation intent on the title of the land in perpetuity. If considering all \u27in perpetuity\u27 conservation covenants under a dedicated program to be private protected areas and land owned by non-government organisations and managed for the purpose of biodiversity conservation, there were approximately 5,000 terrestrial properties that could be considered private protected areas in Australia covering 8,913,000 ha as at September 2013. This comprises almost 4,900 conservation covenants covering over 4,450,000 ha and approximately 140 properties owned by private land trusts covering approximately 4,594,120 ha. Most conservation covenanting programs now seek to complement the comprehensiveness, adequacy and representativeness of the public reserve system, either stating so explicitly or by aiming to protect the highest priority ecosystems on private land. There are a range of incentives offered for private land conservation and requirements of owners of private protected areas to report on their activities vary in Australia. However, there are a number of key policy challenges that need to be addressed if private protected areas are to achieve their full potential in Australia, including managing broad-scale ecosystem processes, protection and tenure reform, improved financial incentives, and access to emerging ecosystem service markets