Our Wild Lives
Our Wild Lives takes listeners into the heart of wildlife conservation, sharing compelling stories from wildlife professionals doing critical work around the world. Your hosts Katie Perkins and Ed Arnett, of The Wildlife Society, bring you thought-provoking conversations with leading experts and emerging voices. Each episode dives into the wild lives of diverse species, explores complex ecosystems, and unpacks the urgent issues facing wildlife conservation.
Our Wild Lives
Conserving Wildlife on Working Landscapes
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
With nearly 60% of the United States under private ownership and management, private landscapes are a significant opportunity for large-scale wildlife conservation.
In this episode of “Our Wild Lives,” TWS member Joe Roy, private lands wildlife biologist at Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and Erik Glenn, CEO at Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust explain how easements, incentives and other science-based management tools keep working lands intact while improving and protecting wildlife habitat.
Erik Glenn's work: https://ccalt.org/meet-our-team/
Joe Roy's work: https://www.maine.gov/ifw/fish-wildlife/wildlife/beginning-with-habitat/about/index.html
Bird Friendly Maple: https://www.audubon.org/our-work/grasslands-aridlands-forests/bird-friendly-maple
Share your thoughts on the Our Wild Lives Podcast by sending us a text here!
Become a member of The Wildlife Society: https://wildlife.org/membership/
Support Wildlife, Invest in Wildlife Professionals: https://wildlife.org/donate/
Follow us on
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewildlifesociety/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewildlifesociety
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-wildlife-society/
What if some of the most important wildlife habitat in the country isn't in a national park or wildlife refuge, but in someone's backyard or on a working farm or a ranch that's been in the same family for generations? Today we're learning why private lands matter so much for conservation. More than two-thirds of the US is privately owned, and much of it is actively managed for agriculture and forestry. These lands are often overlapping with critical habitat for fish and wildlife, including threatened and endangered species. We're going to dive into how conservation easements and land stewardship keep working lands productive for both people and wildlife, and why private landowners are essential conservation partners. Welcome to the Our Wildlife podcast brought to you by the Wildlife Society.
SPEAKER_03:And before we get rolling, I actually want to ask you a question. Your home state is Texas. What do you think the Texas rank is among the 50 states in terms of percent of public lands? Just a guess.
SPEAKER_01:I would bet that it's 50. I'm pretty sure the number is something like 97% privately owned. Is that right?
SPEAKER_03:The source I use ranks it at 45%. So 4.2% public lands. These are publicly owned lands, state and federal. My own home state of Illinois actually is right there with uh Texas at 4.1% public lands. The states with the least amount of public ownership are Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Drumroll, Rhode Island. Assuming these are all adjusted for acreage sizes. Rhode Island's pretty dinky. It's not even a county in Texas. But Rhode Island has the least at 1.5%. So that's public land ownership based. So you can flip that around and look at it in terms of the amount of private lands, which is why I'm making this point. And it's so important when you add all these up, a good two-thirds of the U.S. or 60% are privately owned. So the point is that private lands and their conservation are critically important. So joining us today, we've got a couple of fantastic guests with different backgrounds, experience, and expertise, and geographic locations. First one I'd introduce uh Joe Roy, who's a TWS member and a certified wildlife biologist with the Wildlife Society. And he works as a private lands wildlife biologist at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Welcome, Joe. Your home state has about 5%, 5.7%, according to my source, public lands. So you got a big uh landscape to manage through that private lands program at 94.3 percent.
SPEAKER_00:You know, you you keep talking about the states as what percentage public they are. I always think about it as what percentage public.
SPEAKER_03:I could have gone either direction, the source I had, but ranked them by public lands. So and for my current resident state of Colorado, state ranking 10th on the public-private land percentage scale, which is about 57% private lands, the remainder in public. Eric Glenn, who's uh Chief Executive Officer of the Colorado Cattlemen's Agricultural Land Trust. And Eric, are you still the president of this partnership for Rangeland Trusts?
SPEAKER_02:Um and we're gearing up for our annual meeting next week in Denver, so uh busy time, but uh all focused on private land conservation.
SPEAKER_03:Great. And uh that's a membership organization of about nine agriculturally focused land trusts that operate across 11 western and midwestern states, correct? That's right. Now up to 13 western and midwestern states. Good deal. I'm operating on some old uh biodata. So well, welcome to both of you. Thanks for being here. Glad to be here.
SPEAKER_01:So, Joe, can you just tell us about the importance of private lands and wildlife conservation broadly?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, thanks for asking. First off, when we think about just this, the scope of land that's privately owned, um, you know, Ed mentioned about 61% or almost two-thirds of the country is privately owned, which just when you think about it purely from an acreage standpoint, two out of three acres are private. And when we think about our wildlife on the landscape and where they're existing, just by percentage chances here, they're going to be on private land. So that's shows an immense amount of importance. You know, 75% of the more than 2,300 plants and animal species that are listed as uh threatened or endangered rely on uh private land across the country. And uh from the consumptive side, 85% of hunters and anglers use private land as part of their outdoor recreation and in pursuit of game and enjoyment of wildlife. So it's just a vast majority of the landscape and really is utilized by a lot of people. So there's a tremendous opportunity for uh benefits to happen on that landscape with the wildlife in mind. And the other thing, too, is those private landowners are millions of individuals or organizations across the country with different goals and objectives. So there's really a whole array of people working in this space to meet different needs from the landscape. And so it just shows the uh importance there, too, of uh what the land is for the people.
SPEAKER_01:It seems like a very complex topic. Can you tell us a little bit about your job and how you're working with private landowners and cutting through that complexity?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, um, I think complex is the right word for it. Uh, you know, as a state agency, our job is to be the stewards of the uh fish and wildlife resources within our state for all members of our state, both consumptive users and non-consumptive users, and people who haven't yet figured out how great wildlife is and figured out a way to integrate it into its life. And so in a state like Maine, where we're over 92, 93, 94% privately owned, depending on what numbers you're looking like, it's really important for us to have a footprint on the on the landscape, so to say, with our land managers to help assist them. Um, my job is really to help the landowners meet their fish and wildlife goals on their property. And the operative thing there is it's their goals and their objectives. While wildlife is managed under the public trust doctrine, the land itself is actually owned by, you know, our landowners. And that includes the plants, the trees, and things like that as well. And so I work with landowners across the state to help them meet the goals and objectives they have for fish and wildlife and help integrate fish and wildlife management into their day-to-day operations. Here in Maine, we are 89 or 90 percent forested, so it's a lot of working with forested landowners, both individuals and families who may own a couple acres to a couple hundred acres, or the uh fortunate landowner who has a thousand acres or more. But we have some large uh uh corporate landowners in excess of a million acres. We have a couple individuals who own land in excess of a million acres. So it's working with them too on their goals and objectives to make sure that while they're meeting their timber producing goals, they're also hitting those wildlife objectives that they have. And the rest of the landscape that's not forested, we have a lot of blueberry farms, a lot of potato farms, and that's a whole different approach that you're utilizing there for wildlife habitat management. And so I work in the non-regulatory space, helping these landowners meet these goals and objectives that they have.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, the collaboration and trust is real important in your role. And uh I suspect working with folks like Eric as well. Eric, give me your perspectives on private lands and why they're important, anything to add to what you've already heard, but also tell us a little bit about, you know, both the cattlemen's land trust program and the broader program that you you had up.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I think Joe did a good job of summarizing the importance of private lands from a wildlife perspective. The one thing I would add is, particularly out here in the West, where we find private lands are really critical for wildlife, particularly uh in the winter. This is where they're coming down and finding forage, and in some cases, even finding some relief from the human uh kind of uh centric uh and human uh populations as well. Some of these private lands can be a nice uh retreat for these big game animals where they're finding a little bit of relief um out there as well. But you know, the private lands in the west are critically important to our our big game species, but also to other species as well. And and there was a reason why the settlers, when they came west, chose uh lands that became private. They tend to be the most productive lands, and uh from a from a food production standpoint, um well, that also conveys down to wildlife and what they're looking for in terms of food and habitat as well. From my professional background running Colorado Cattlemen's Ag Land Trust and the president of the Partnership of Range Land Trust, we were founded 31 years ago by the membership of the Colorado Cattlemen's Association, who at the time they were trying to find ways to keep their members on these working landscapes throughout Colorado at a time where particularly estate tax exemptions were uh were pretty small. And what we were seeing was a lot of family ranching operations being sold and chopped up, unfortunately. And so we were seeing more fragmentation of landscapes. One of the primary reasons for the establishment of CCLT was to combat that fragmentation, and it was primarily from a from an ag perspective, but there's just so much in agriculture that then corresponds to wildlife and wildlife management. And so a lot of the byproducts that we've seen from the conservation work that we've done, which is which is centered on agriculture and production agriculture is a lot of wildlife habitat that's been conserved, but also uh we're seeing these landowners now working on habitat improvement. And and that's kind of the excitement that I have for this work is that you're working with these great land stewards of these private lands to conserve these properties, uh, but then they're looking at ways to further uh conservation efforts, and a lot of that has to do with habitat enhancement.
SPEAKER_03:You know, Eric, you brought up a couple of really good points that I want to dig a little deeper into, but a key one is keeping working lands and working hands isn't an adage that's out there. And uh, you know, I know plenty of detractors, and I'm sure there are more than I even know, that don't buy this argument that somehow the land is gonna get sold to corporate developers and get chopped up. Uh I can think of a lot of places where I wouldn't want to put condos or a luxury resort hotel and such, but that's not really the point. The point is that it's gonna get sold if the landowner can't stay there and work the land, as you said. And I think um what we're gonna dig into here with tools and and resources available and just continue this discussion on demonstrating how important these lands are, and it's important to keep them in a state that is good for wildlife and good for the landowner as well. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:And I think one of the other key components to this is when you think about agriculture and you think about wildlife, they need a lot of the same things. And so finding tools and creating incentives and creating programs that work for ag producers and working landscapes is going to have enormous benefit to our wildlife populations. One of the things we talk about is in agriculture, we need a scale of ag lands that allow for supporting industries to stay close to those agricultural landscapes. Well, wildlife need the same thing, right? They need large landscapes to really function the way they were intended to, and we're seeing less and less of that. And so, you know, our hope is that when we uh at least in our way we look at conservation is put the landowner first, and we're gonna get a lot of more durable and scalable conservation that will be meaningful for all the other natural resources uh that play a part in in these working landscapes.
SPEAKER_01:So, Eric, can you dive a little bit more into some of those programs and incentives and things that turn these working lands into lands for wildlife as well?
SPEAKER_02:Sure. So we primarily work with conservation easements, which are deed restrictions that are intended to be permanent. So there are permanent deed restrictions that are recorded against the property. And the main focus, particularly on working lands, conservation easements, is to keep those properties in a single, uh effectively a single unit. So if you've got a thousand-acre property, you're gonna keep it as a thousand-acre property in perpetuity. Uh easements are recorded in the county records, uh, they're entirely voluntary, and we worked with the landowners to structure these easements in a way that work uh in concert with their agricultural operations. And what we found is that when we structure them that way, we're seeing just tremendous ability to also positively impact wildlife and habitat on these properties. We primarily use the easement as our tool, but we've worked with now over 500 families across Colorado. Uh we've conserved in partnership with those landowners over 820,000 acres. Uh and so we've asked the question, well, what comes next? You know, our job is to make sure that those easements uh and the terms of those easements are maintained, but can we do more? Can we work with our landowner partners to do more? And that's where we've launched what we call additive conservation program, which is designed to layer conservation projects on top of these conserved lands. And a lot of that relates to habitat improvement. Uh, it may be fencing projects that better improve migration flows while at the same time helping the landowner with their uh livestock operation. It may be uh riparian restoration, it may be grassland restoration, it's a lot of different things. But what we're finding is that our landowners have these projects, they know that they exist, and their limitations are really time, capacity, and and money. And and we see our uh role as being a sort of a concierge service to to partner our landowners with other partners to to further enhance the conservation values of these working landscapes. And and what's remarkable uh well, what some people may find remarkable, I don't necessarily find it remarkable. I find it to be what I would expect, but 88% of our landowners when we surveyed them had projects identified that were ready to go. And they were just waiting uh for somebody to be able to come in and help them execute on that. So that's a that's a pretty significant opportunity for all of us in conservation. Uh it's a significant opportunity to further enhance our agricultural economy in Colorado, but also our wildlife habitat as well.
SPEAKER_03:Joe, I'm sure you use easements as well. Maybe you don't, um, but I'm sure there's a lot more tools in your toolbox. Uh add on to what Eric's talking about and some of the things that you're experienced using in the East.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, first off, Eric, and forestry here in Maine, uh, easements are a huge component. About 15% of our entire landscape is in a conservation easement. My uh sources tell me that I've read that that puts us as one of the highest percentages of conservation easements of any state. And a lot of these, like you said, about working working lands for you might look very differently than working lands for us, which is forest forest working lands. So these easements are a great tool for particularly larger landowners who want to just maintain um, you know, um sustainable forest practices on the landscape and ensure that that land doesn't end up in a different development portfolio or change from forest to something else. Some of the other tools we have are some tax advantages here in the state of Maine. So we have uh a current use tax program that landowners can enroll their land in, and essentially the valuation is calculated at their current use as opposed to like the highest possible use. So a big portion of that is what we call our tree growth tax plan. So landowners who choose to maintain forests, maintain working forests with forest management plans that incorporate wildlife resources have huge tax advantages, and that helps us make sure we're avoiding situations where people might be land rich but cash poor. So you have a great resource that you're maintaining for the public benefit, but you want to make sure that that tax bill doesn't force them to need to change that land use, especially in the forested landscape where that sort of payday you get from your management activity in this region might come once every 35 or 40 years because of the growth rates or the type of forest that you have. Um, the other thing, too, that we use is a lot of a cost share program. So most of us in the private lands management landscape think when it comes to wildlife, carrots are much better than sticks. Um so I don't even carry any sticks with me. It's just a bunch of carrots if it's a good day. And uh really it's coming up with tools that help the producers, the farmers, the foresters, the loggers, in our case, uh meet their goals. You know, the land ethic amongst our landowners is is phenomenal. Um, these are people who care deeply, deeply for the resource that they that they are working within. I tell them all the time when I go work meet with you as a landowner, I'm excited because I'm probably gonna learn more from you as the landowner than you're gonna learn from me as the biologist, because you've been walking this landscape and I'll share a quick story. I was talking with a landowner about some benefits of tree planting and ask if he had any experience with it. And he said, Yeah, I've planted a thousand trees a year on this property for the last 50 years. And it's like, okay, so you've planted 50,000 trees. And he's like, Yeah, I've tried assisted migration, I've used this, I've used that. And I'm like, all right, time for me to use my ears and just learn from you. Um and so some of the great tools we have are through our state partners, like our Forest Service, who have a cost-share program available to help people develop forest management plans, to help people address the invasive plant species concerns that they have, or help support them as they work in a forested landscape whose market is a little bit more difficult to work in due to closing paper mills and the changing structure of our economy. Um, other programs we work with are like our USDA, U.S. Department of Agriculture partners, like the Natural Resource Conservation Service, and a lot of their cost-share programs, whether it be like the Environmental Quality Incentives program across the country, there's a lot of use of things like the Conservation Reserve Program and Conservation Stewardship Program. We use a lot of those sorts of programs to help say, hey, what are you doing on the landscape? How can we help? All right, well, here's a little bit of money or a little bit of technical assistance that can help you meet that goal. You're doing 75, 80, 90% of it on your own, but this can help make that more economically viable for you, um, you know, and help keep your landscape working in a way that you can maintain your livelihood and continue to provide these great resources and this great opportunity.
SPEAKER_03:I'm curious some of the partners you work with in the nonprofit world. I know many that that you know work in that delivery space. So they're they're supplementing NRCS staff, for example, for technical assistance to help on that conservation delivery. But maybe dig into that a little bit, Joe, from your perspective, and then we'll jump to Eric because the West is a little bit different, perhaps.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, uh, you know, if you get two private lands biologists in the room and ask them how to solve a problem, we'll give you three or four opinions. So there's definitely a different way to do it in every single state. And here in Maine, we have some really great partners in the forested world. So the Maine Forest Product Council, which represents a lot of the larger landowners, uh, we work with them. Uh, we have a great organization called the Maine Woodland Owners Association, which is made up of thousands of members of smaller landowners across the state. And when I say smaller, we're really talking about like family landowners, like a few thousand acres or less in a non-commercial ownership, maybe a multi-generational ownership. Organizations like that work with their members all the time on legislative issues, but technical assistance. We work with some in our in our very limited non-forested landscape. We work with a great organization locally called Ag Allies, which focuses on delayed mowing and grazing within a grassland landscape to benefit certain birds like our uh eastern meadow lark and our bobble link. Uh, our local main Audubon has a fantastic footprint with something called Forestry for Maine Birds, which is this great technical guidance on how to do forestry that impacts birds in a positive way while also meeting your fiber and fuel needs. And we have one thing. That you know, a lot of other people probably never heard of. That same organization has uh uh bird-friendly maple guidance. So we can work with maple producers on how to make their sugar bush or their or their uh stand of maple trees more friendly for birds, and you even get the cool little sticker that goes on your maple syrup product that says that you're managing for maple syrup with birds in mind. And uh I'll shamelessly tell you we have the best maple syrup in the country here in Maine, and and the birds benefit from it as well. So we work with a lot of those really local partners, and then there's some national or international organizations or regional organizations that we work with. Um, you know, your your nature conservancies and things like that who work a lot in the easement space and those sorts of things. So partners big and small across the state.
SPEAKER_03:Uh it's good to have those NGO partners for those certification programs and lots of promotion on bird-friendly beefs, one I can think of, Eric. I don't know if I've been involved with that, but bird-friendly maple syrup, I have not heard of that. That's that sounds like a great program and a great way to advertise good forest practices that are good for wildlife. Eric, so who are some of the key partners that you work with?
SPEAKER_02:Not unlike Joe. You know, we really need partners to do the work that we do, and landowners need partners uh to continue to do what they do, which is steward these landscapes. And I think partnerships are so incredibly vital in our natural resource management space and in agriculture. And and you know, for us, we rely on a lot of the same partners that Joe talked about in Nature Conservancy. Uh, people might find it surprising, but the nature conservancy is a key partner for Colorado Cattlemen's Ag Land Trust. And in the I will tell you this, I take a lot of pride in this, and I think a good partnership is where both partners are pushing each other to do better. And I think we've pushed the Nature Conservancy over the last three decades to think about conservation in in the working land space a little differently. And they've pushed us in important ways uh too. And and and when you get that kind of joint pushing, I think you end up with better outcomes. And it's not that we agree all the time, and that's okay. But what we've been able to do is deliver high-quality conservation, both from an uh land conservation from an easement standpoint, but also to some of these enhancement projects as well. So TNC has been a key partner for us over the years. Trust for Public Land uh is one of our core partners, conservation fund, particularly in the land protection space. But now we're really expanding, as I said, into this. How do we add additional value to our landowner partners and help them achieve more conservation outcomes that also benefit their agricultural operations on these conserved lands? And in that space, you know, we've really started to expand those partners. Uh, we've got a great partnership with the Intermountain West Joint Venture, which is a bird partnership and collaborative that's doing some really phenomenal work in bringing attention to the importance of irrigated agriculture and particularly flood-irrigated agriculture to migratory bird species. And that's something that, you know, for a long time, I think the USDA and NRCS were really pushing landowners and society at large, these hyper-efficient irrigation systems. Uh, and that's had an impact and not a positive impact on our migratory uh bird species. And so now we're really focused on how do we bring this story about what people think is an inefficient system of flood irrigation, uh, that's still an important process for our ag producers in the West. But what we're finding is that inefficient system has huge benefits uh not only to our bird populations, but also to the recharge of our groundwater table. That's you know, you don't get that kind of uh information if you don't have partners and good partners that are working in collaboration uh with an end goal, which is really how do we keep uh agriculture productive? How do we keep our rural communities intact? And how do we keep our species thriving? And and when you have those kind of three common goals, you can do a lot of good stuff.
SPEAKER_00:Eric, I'd say that one thing that you highlighted right there was just your partners teaching you and and things you learn. And that's one thing in the private land space is that uh those partners challenging our our understanding and challenging our knowledge and bringing to the forefront those concerns that we're not seeing as as biologists on the ground in every corner of our state or country is just the is huge. You know, those partnerships really are where we learn in Maine here as well.
SPEAKER_02:But I think, Joe, to your point, the willingness of the scientists, biologists, and the partners to listen to landowners who have this knowledge that you can't teach in an academic setting. And and that's where I think we've had some challenges, is that you know, we think that the PhDs and everybody have all the answers. Well, uh, you know, these landowners have PhD in that land, right? A hundred plus years of knowledge of seeing fluctuations and cycles, you know, you can't teach that. And it goes back to a lot of the teachings of Leopold and and in the same county almanac and land ethic, and and we need to marry those two things together, right? To to come up with the best outcomes. Traditional knowledge with that academic knowledge, and then you can I think make real good progress, but it all depends on us listening to each other and being willing to have those conversations.
SPEAKER_01:Definitely. So, can you explain a story of a specific project that a private landowner did and how it helped wildlife and how it might have improved their agricultural operation?
SPEAKER_02:Um so I'll tell you a story of a landowner that we've worked with recently. And what's interesting about this is that you know, in the in the private land space, I would say, you know, perpetual usements still uh aren't widely adopted. And and there's a lot of misconceptions about perpetual easements. And it's expected that it's hard for a landowner to get their mind around I'm gonna take on a perpetual partner. That's a big decision. Uh and I'm gonna take on these perpetual restrictions. And so one of the things we've been working on recently is is alternatives that maybe eventually will lead to perpetual conservation, but at least in the short term will get us some good conservation for the next 10, 15, 20 years. So we earlier, well, I guess now last year, early in 25, we worked with the Property and Environment Research Center out of Bozeman, Montana to do the first elk migration agreement in Colorado with the landowner in Park County. Um, this landowner has been thinking about permanent conservation easements for a long time, but just hasn't gotten entirely comfortable with that concept. But what he was comfortable with was this 10-year agreement, this elk migration agreement, allows him to be compensated for making some changes in his agricultural operation that benefit wildlife, but still at the same time allow him to do the things he needs to do with his ag operation. So what we're effectively doing is reducing the conflict that naturally exists between elk migrating through this area in the cattle operation uh through this agreement. And so the landowner is getting what he needs in terms of compensation to adjust his agricultural operation to this, the natural flows of the elk. And then the elk are benefiting uh by this landowner removing some fences and doing some other things that allow them to move. But what we're most excited about in terms of this is that we think over time, because now we have a partnership with this landowner, and we know they're interested in looking at conservation uh more deeply, is that that kind of 10-year agreement will allow them to build a relationship with us of trust that may ultimately lead to permanent conservation. And and so we see this working kind of in two ways. One, we can do these kind of habitat agreements with existing landowners who have easements, or we can start with these habitat type agreements, uh, build a relationship, and then see where those go in terms of permanent land protection. But what we're really focused on is how do we how do we find win-win, so wind that works for the landowner and their ag operation, but also has these additional conservation benefits. And in this case, it's for wildlife, right? It's for elk. Um, I think there's going to be other uh wildlife benefits and ag benefits that come from this agreement. And now we're working on our second elk migration agreement. Um, we've got a lot of interest from landowners. And really, for us, it's about how do we put more tools uh on the table for landowners that, again, have those co-benefits to their ag operation, but also to the natural resources that we're looking to make sure continue to exist because we need them for agriculture and for wildlife and for just a quality of life for our population.
SPEAKER_03:That's a great example, and it brings up you know the questions of risk and rewards and and trust and all that goes with that. Um, the biology of the matter is also important. I've been involved with some project, well, in an advisory capacity on lesser prairie chickens and some other species, and the the notion of term easements versus permanent easements uh gets gets interesting quick depending on who you're talking to. And I think one of the issues from a biological perspective, and it depends on the goals, right? Elk migration is very different than providing nest and burgering habitat for a game bird. But in that context, the worry I think, uh putting on my pointy-headed scientist PhD here in hat, is the is the possibility of a shifting mosaic of habitat that never really provides the ultimate conservation benefit for the species, if that makes sense. But I also completely understand the permanent issues. I mean, there's trust involved with either one, right? And but the biology of the matter has to be worked into that as well. Because, you know, if a plan gets signed off on and we just have five-year terms, easements that are rotating habitat around the landscape, that may or may not achieve that goal. Um whereas permanent easements obviously are there permanently and and provide the agreement, but they also may need maintenance. And there's got to be resources for maintenance too. Have you have you seen that, either of you, on you know, a situation where there was a permanent easement, but maybe its effectiveness was influenced by that permanency and yet a lack of resource to manage. Forestry is probably a good example, um, but also some rangeland management stuff.
SPEAKER_02:I and I think we've been really cautious because I don't think we want to talk about term easements. I think we want to talk about term agreements and and permanent easements. And they're different tools used for different goals, right? Right. Because your point's exactly right, Ed. I mean, in some cases, the what you're trying to achieve really is only going to be achieved by permanents. But what I think is is how do you provide more tools to get landowners comfortable when you look at overall adoption of conservation, permanent conservation easements, generally it's still pretty low. In some states like Maine and Colorado, it's higher than in others. So but we know landowners have this conservation ethic. How do we how do we build tools that that help them achieve what they're trying to achieve? And and uh and what we're finding is more tools better, but what we're also finding is uh in Chafee County, Colorado was the first county to to kind of build a temporary uh conservation agreement that's funded by county tax dollars. Um and we had concerns about that. What we're finding though is that they're already converting a bunch of their temporary agreements into permanent easements because the landowners have gotten comfortable with it. So I it's certainly a concept that's controversial in the conservation space, and we see that all the time. Um but I think it's one that we just have to have these conversations and it's different tools fitting different goals, too, to your point. But I am curious because I think that you know of what Joe's seeing in in Maine, and we certainly I could certainly talk about the stewardship issue with perpetual easements.
SPEAKER_03:Let's come back to that. Um, because I'm curious on that, because I know there are maintenance, sometime maintenance and habitat requirements, and maybe not the resources to fulfill the objectives. Joe, what's your take on this discussion?
SPEAKER_00:I don't focus as intimately on conservation easements as Eric is is covering, but one thing I will say here in Maine is that generally our easements for our working forests are permanent. I'm not aware of a lot of term conservation easements that are occurring in the forested landscape. And the forested landscape that we have is different from an operational standpoint that you're not really annually or even like every few years entering the same actual acreage to do vegetation manipulation or forest management. We're we're really talking creating that shifting mosaic, and you might not come back to the same acreage for several decades. So, and then in terms of like conservation easement stewardship and management throughout the lifetime of the easement, a lot of it is just making sure that it's remaining a working forest and there hasn't been any sort of building development or things like that on it. So it's a little bit different than in the agricultural landscape. And you know, we're not dealing with irrigation requirements or anything like that within that. We're mostly just dealing with road maintenance and access for future temper harvests.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no, I really appreciated that the clarity on the terminology here, uh the term easement versus term agreements. And I I totally agree with having all the tools and even creating new ones for the toolbox, no question. It's controversial, only in the extent is uh for me anyway, of making sure that we're meeting the intended goals of the landowner, but also the outcome for the species. And you know, when you're talking about a a large landscape-scale species like lesser prairie chickens or sage grouse, species like that, uh it may or may not work in all situations. So it's situationally dependent as well.
SPEAKER_02:I would tell you part of it is about how you design the incentives around the tools, too. Yeah, I think you know, we did a lot of work with Greater Sagegrouse. And when the Sagegrouse initiative rolled out from USDA to try to prevent the listing of that species in the early 2010s, um, you know, easements were at the forefront of how they were going to combat that because habitat fragmentation was the big risk to that, well one of the big risks to that species. And I think SGI in terms of habitat fragmentation proved to be pretty successful. But then we come to find out, you know, there's other risks, right? Cheat grass and fire and juniper encroachment, uh, all or woody encroachment, whatever uh, you know, whatever species it may be, you know, has these big impacts because you're increasing fire risk and raptor predation of these species. And so we've got to just continue to think through how we're designing the tools and how we're designing the incentives, because I think if you let's take sage grouse as an example, you know, are we so confined uh to paying a landowner to do a perpetual conservation to the appraised value of that easement that's determined by a third-party appraiser? I've argued we've got to look at a different approach to how we're valuing these things because in that case, what we're valuing is the hypothetical loss of the development versus what we're actually trying to achieve, which is the conservation of that species. And those values may be very different. And so if we really want to get habitat conservation at scale, we need to think about different ways to value the incentives.
SPEAKER_03:These are very complex issues, but the solutions can't be complicated. That's a quick deterrent to a landowner, isn't it? It's got to be simple, straightforward, benefit their operation. And even though the ecology and a lot of the even production issues and and you know steps for having a productive operation is complex by by default, but it but the solutions can't be that complicated.
SPEAKER_00:Ed, I think you have a really great point there about the the solutions need to be simple because owning, operating land, and making a living off of it already has so many complex components and externalities that you're that I mean in the forested landscape, we're looking it most of us' face would turn green if we saw the maintenance line on some of the forestry equipment that the folks have to deal with. They're dealing with workforce shortages, shifting input costs and all those sorts of things. And uh to come in and say, hey, let's add some more complexity to your life. Doesn't go over well, that's a good way to skip to get pointed towards the exit, you know. Right.
SPEAKER_03:Well, and I mean, you know, I we we're a science-based organization and we tout that as the Wildlife Society, but science has to underpin these solutions, but they need not be so overly complex that we miss one's step in a model that tells us we need this kind of broodering habitat, for example. Uh we need to have simple solutions that are indeed science-based, but it's hard to explain to a landowner or to a third-party uh arbiter, as you noted earlier.
SPEAKER_01:We'll be right back after this short break. Love wildlife? Join the Wildlife Society to connect with a community of professionals working to advance wildlife science and conservation. Membership gives you access to exclusive resources, job boards, publications like the Wildlife Professional, discounts, and networking opportunities across North America. Learn more and join today at wildlife.org/slash join. Is there something that each of you would say if there was a landowner listening that was on the fence about conservation easements and maybe just needed a little encouragement, needed a little more information? What would you tell them as like the broad overview of, you know, this is why you should consider conservation within your production land?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's a really good question, Katie. I think that for me, what I would say is I would want to know what the landowner's goals and objectives are, and then listen and then say, hey, I'm hearing you say this. It's important to you that you maintain continuous forest cover on the landscape and that you're producing adequate uh, you know, firewood and timber resources, right? Well, I can tell you here's the dozen or two dozen species of wildlife that are utilizing the landscape that you're creating, and here's the benefit that you're creating for them. Um, you know, the landowner might have mentioned that they have family who enjoy birding or hiking or hunting, and we can show the parallels between their management and those species needs and how it supports those sorts of activities. Uh, some of the best grouse habitat in the northeast comes in our commercial managed forest landscapes. So uh some of the foresters I work with are also have champion grouse dogs and are doing amazing work on the landscape where they're finishing their 12-hour workday and then just rolling right into a couple hours of hunting in the afternoon, and it just ties right into their land ethic and their goals. And so the big thing is just finding where their goals overlap with some of the resources that we're talking about.
SPEAKER_03:I suspect some of your more threatened species are those that are more early, early serial stage dependent, wouldn't they be?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and so that's one thing that we do a really good job of in Maine, is that it's especially in the northern half of the state, we create a lot of uh young forest habitat on kind of the shifting mosaic. And so if you're a chestnut-sided warbler, Maine is a good place to be, you know, because we are creating that habitat that you need uh uh daily, you know. Um, and then also working with the larger landowners to say, hey, you know, there are some later successional species that are present on the landscape. What are ways that we can talk to you about incorporating those species need into your management? And you start looking at lands that they have that might be harder to work within, higher elevations, things like that, that they're like, hey, let's use that as kind of that reserve component for those species while we're changing our management over here to meet the resource needs that we have. while also still providing for the wildlife, you know.
SPEAKER_03:Eric, what do you think about Katie's great question on someone on the fence and their concerns they might have?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think you know when we talk to landowners, we really try to point out to them that this is um an easement is really their choice and they can help design it in a way that works for their operation and their and their land. And I think oftentimes landowners have a perception that an easement's just going to be handed to them and they've got to take it and there's not ability to have a negotiation that allows them input into designing this in a way that'll work for their operation. And and and really that is something that landowners need to understand is that you know these conservation easements are meant to be tailored to those individual specific properties and to landowners' goals and they can enter into these discussions really strongly advocating for what they need long term for their operation. And I think again it goes back to when it works it goes back to the fact that landowners that are looking at conservation easements by and large even if they're on the fence about them have a just tremendous ethic towards the land and stewardship. And when you combine that landowner ethic with a good conservation partner you're going to end up with good uh durable conservation that has these multi-pronged benefits.
SPEAKER_00:Well one thing Katie I would say that's really important too is that we let the landowners know conservation management is not a zero sum game. It's not like you have to choose between your economic goals and requirements and conserving wildlife habitat or creating wildlife habitat. And there's a whole very large toolbox you know we've talked a lot about easements here today. That's just one of the tools uh another tool might just be getting a forest management plan or a wildlife habitat management plan and incorporating that in. It might be saying hey this acreage is really my prime producing acreage I'm going to focus on a different portion of my land holding as kind of my wildlife focus. And so it's it's there's a space for wildlife habitat management and conservation within every landscape and within every landowner's goals and objectives it's not all or nothing.
SPEAKER_03:Excellent point I was going to jump back into these perpetual easements and conservation plans. How does this play out for smaller landowners and you know if they in a rangeland situation in particular grassland where they may not have the resources to actually do that long-term management what resources do they have available to them?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah so I think one of the key points I would make is that an easement is really designed for durability and by that I mean the easement should be looked at as the tool that keeps the land intact and there to do what the land's intended to do long term. And then management concept should be layered on top of that and outside of the easement. It doesn't mean that the easement doesn't have some components of management there, but where we believe you end up with the best long-term conservation is if the management prescriptions that we may want to try to achieve from a resource perspective, those should be in a management plan that's outside of the perpetual easement. Where we get into a lot of trouble with easements, I think getting a bad name in in particularly agricultural spaces is that when we put management plans into perpetual documents because those perpetual documents aren't supposed to really change where we know management more needs to be more adaptive as we learn we're going to adapt that management. So that's kind of how we've taken it Ed is you know when we talk about easements and in perpetuity there's two components of that long-term nature of it. It's one does the land trust partner have the resources it needs to carry out its obligations under that easement which is an entirely different question, but one that's important when we talk about easements. You know how do you think about the money that's necessary for carrying out the perpetual obligations of a conservation easement as an organization. And then to your point how do we help continue to support our landowner partners in achieving the management outcomes now that these landscapes are going to be perpetually continued as a as an agricultural working lands operation that's that's got these restrictions that come with it.
SPEAKER_03:I appreciate the way you laid that out makes a lot of sense too because now you can work with various partners to implement those management plans.
SPEAKER_01:Laid that out nicely so Joe could you tell us a little bit about the new working group that's been formed for private lands and what your goals for the next couple of years are thanks for asking Katie it's really exciting.
SPEAKER_00:You know having been a TWS member for quite some time now going back to when I was a student chapter member we uh I've never seen this private lands component get its own kind of stage like it has recently and we're very excited about it. So I think if you made it this far listening today, you know that we have a lot of opportunity in the private landscape to manage for fish and wildlife habitat and that it is very different in every state in every province in every territory across our membership. And the goal of the private lands working group is to bring all of those different regional specialists and regional expertise in and bring them together and say how do we better serve the members of our organization the Wildlife Society with information as it pertains to private lands management. Today I know that Ed learned about maple syrup production and how it can be bird friendly and that's something that maybe people don't know about and I might not know much about bird friendly beef. And those these are the sorts of things that we want to bring to the membership and make sure that there's a strong background of science and diverse opinions and understanding across the landscape to help our members learn more about private lands. We also want to make sure that we're available to council to provide expert feedback on things that are impacting the private landscape and the management. A lot of us spend a lot of time with our policy hats on monitor things like farm bill policy and different sorts of conservation programs and tools and how our federal partners are able to assist in wildlife habitat management across the country and we are the boots on the ground there. And so we want to be able to make sure that we can bring that information to council should they need it. You know there's a lot of people working in the private land space and one of the big things that we have said at our our kind of initial meetings is that we want to be additive. We don't need two people in different caves across the country making the same stone wheel we got to work on something different and new and kind of be additive as we work towards this goal of increasing active management on the landscape on the private landscape for wildlife we're also really hoping to create education opportunities for the membership to learn more about this. A lot of these things that you need to know to be a good private lands biologist you can't get in a classroom you can't get in your education you got to kick the dirt you got to be out in the woods you got to learn from the professionals so we're hoping to expand opportunities around symposium, conferences, field trips, and then a regional input with our sections and our state chapters to help make sure that they're always knowing that there's someone who is private lands knowledgeable who can help bring some more information to their group.
SPEAKER_03:To people that don't really know much about this, let's just say both of you are on a plane coming from DC and you're riding with just a member of the public from inner city Chicago and you start up a conversation and you're telling them what do you do and they may ask well why do I care what happens to a landowner in Colorado or a forest corporate owner in then upstate Maine? Why would anyone care about the things we've been talking about today? How do you go about explaining that to someone?
SPEAKER_00:Ed, I have a really great response here and I'm glad that you just by chance said pick I'm sitting next to someone from Chicago because I have a family member from Chicago who sent me a photo of a bird that flew into their building and it was a a a woodcock and they were like what is this bird um and I explained it to them and it was one of the classic scenarios of this is something that is migrating through the area that you live it's certainly not setting up in in your neighborhood to to live but it is just passing through. But it goes to show that while you might not necessarily sit in a spot that has these resources that other people are talking about, you certainly are a part of the system that is influencing their life and this is a really good opportunity if I'm if I'm sitting next to someone on this plane to just talk about the value that that has elsewhere. So you can talk to your your average person about the intrinsic value of wildlife resources and and maybe they buy into that maybe they don't but they've probably gone on a hike they've probably walked in the park they've probably floated down the river they've probably enjoyed the wild landscape in some way shape or form or watched a program as a kid in school on those sorts of things and we can explain to them that their impact at their level or their location can have a broad impact across the landscape and across the world. You know one thing I tell people all the time is we have a bird called the Black Vernian warbler that breeds here in northern Maine and every year it flies uninterrupted nonstop to South America across the Atlantic Ocean. So when we think about the scale of which that wildlife utilize the landscape it's it's global. And I think that a lot of folks don't necessarily realize that and it's a great opportunity for education and and and I have found most of the time once you start having that conversation people you see their eyes light up they get excited you kind of get that like childhood wonder that you had when you were watching you know different Nat Geo things as a kid and you're like wait that's really how this is all working and you can really get them get them uh uh engaged I think yeah so I tell a similar story to Joe but Ed you're probably familiar with this but um the best way I think to describe the relevance of our work to the public is to talk about the drive between Colorado Springs and Denver and if you've ever done that drive on I-25 and so many people have you get to a point south of Castle Rock uh where the the population just ends and you go back in time and you're surrounded by this vast open space that is all private lands that have been conserved.
SPEAKER_02:And you know what I'll tie it to wildlife too in that uh as I understand it the largest uh wildlife overpass now in the country uh just was constructed over I-25 in this corridor on on private land and so you know for all of us that that do that commute whether we're residents of Colorado or we're here traveling and visiting uh we all get a sense of relief when we get out of the urban areas of Castle Rock and Colorado Springs we crest Monument Hill and you come into this vast openness that takes you back in time and you can engage with wildlife. You know you can see elk you can see pronghorn you can see mule deer you can see any number of species and all that's private land. And we still all as a public get to enjoy it in a different way. I think being able to make it relevant to somebody it's something that they can feel and touch. This is why these things are important and everybody who's ever made that commute uh knows kind of the sense of uh calmness even in the even in the times when you're stuck in traffic you get to that point and you just kind of shrug a little bit because it's a much better dynamic to even to be sitting in traffic in that open space versus surrounded by Walmart and nothing against Walmart but Walmart Costco and it's a better view. That's better for sure right and largely because you know you have a chance to see wildlife you have a chance to see these things that nature intended for us to see and interact with and that's my pitch and like Joe you know people do care and they can resonate with it.
SPEAKER_03:I appreciate that a lot you guys made some really excellent points yeah one thing I just really appreciated was the carrot uh stick convention and the incentives and you know making this work for the landowners these are not mutually exclusive goals uh one thing I've said for decades since I was working in the private sector in the timber industry you start to realize pretty quickly that private landowners are so vital to conservation and yet they don't always see conservation as an investment and I have always said for the conservation to be successful it has to be an investment and not the proverbial impediment and you have to have the right balance of carrots and sticks to make this happen for both private landowner needs and for wildlife and I think you guys did a great job of articulating that from two very different regions and and different perspectives and really appreciate you joining the podcast with us. We'll see you all next time