OOS 13-4
Enhancing conservation incentives for private landowners
With more than two-thirds of endangered and threatened species occurring on private lands, and perhaps about a third only on private lands, these lands serve an important role in species protection and recovery. However, the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) initially created conservation disincentives for many landowners, because having a listed species on one’s property invoked regulations that could impose costs by restricting land use. Over the past several decades, the US Fish and Wildlife service has introduced a range of innovative tools that aim to provide incentives and reduce disincentives for conservation on private lands. This talk explores some of the programs and funding mechanisms that have been developed and suggests some avenues for enhancing private land contributions to species recovery.
Results/Conclusions
Existing programs -- including Safe Harbor Agreements, Habitat Conservation Plans, Candidate Conservation Agreements (including with Assurances), the “no surprises” rule, and Conservation Banks -- have been essential for increasing landowners’ flexibility for land use. However, most lack sufficient evaluation to understand their effectiveness for contributing to species conservation. New funding programs and partnerships also offer promise for enhancing conservation on private lands.
To increase protections and to further recovery of species, we recommend that the Services continue to develop and implement voluntary landowner conservation agreements and incentive programs for conservation. In addition, more evaluation of these tools is needed, both in terms of conservation outcomes and landowner satisfaction. Researchers could more easily contribute to evaluation if there were greater access to basic information about landowner agreements, such as the terms and locations of agreements, landowner compliance, and species outcomes. In addition, increased investment in institutional capacity for implementing and evaluating private landowner programs and better integrating them into species recovery efforts could enhance private lands’ conservation contributions.