Survey Says: Landowners Willing to Conserve Playas
Most landowners with playas on their properties are willing to conserve them, and many say the wetlands are a positive presence on the land, primarily because they attract wildlife. These and other insights into landowner attitudes toward playa conservation were recently revealed in the PLJV's new "High Plains Landowner Survey 2006: Farmers, Ranchers and Conservation."

"The results are encouraging for wildlife and wetlands conservation, especially going into the next Farm Bill reauthorization process," said PLJV Coordinator Mike Carter. "JV partners should continue their efforts to ensure that playa conservation programs are given greater attention in the next Farm Bill."

The survey revealed that a majority of playa landowners (74 percent) are willing (28 percent 'highly' and 46 percent 'moderately') to plant native grass buffers around playas if given an incentive, which is what Farm Bill programs like the Farmable Wetlands Program (FWP) and Wetlands Conservation Non-Floodplain Initiative (CP23a) do.

Survey data also revealed that landowners like playas and the wildlife they attract. Sixty-eight percent of playa landowners said that the wetlands are an 'overall positive' feature on the landscape, with wildlife being the top benefit. Also, landowner (playa and non-playa owners) willingness is fairly significant for many other conservation practices such as removing invasive plants (52 percent willing) and implementing grazing management plans (48 percent willing).

The survey was conducted from March through May, 2006, by DJ Case and Associates on behalf of the PLJV. The 21-question survey was mailed to 1,800 landowners randomly selected from a Farm Service Agency list of agricultural producers in the six-state playa lakes region. Final response was 26 percent (429 respondents). Confidence level for the sample is +/-2 to 5 percentage points. Complete survey results and executive summary are available on the PLJV web site.

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Playa Landowners - An Underserved Market?
Although most playa landowners are willing to conserve the wetlands, only a small fraction of landowners are actually enrolling in playa conservation programs available to them. The disparity might signal that playa landowners are an underserved market for wetland conservation programs like those offered under the Farm Bill, or that programs simply are not meeting their needs.

"The High Plains Landowner Survey results are a bit perplexing because landowner desire is so high but participation is so low," said Carter. "I think we and our partners that administer Farm Bill programs have to do a much better job in tailoring and marketing playa conservation programs to producers."

Two such programs are the aforementioned FWP and CP23a which are offered as continuous signup practices under the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Although continuous - meaning landowners can signup whenever they want - enrollment has been miniscule in the playa lakes region compared to the acreage allotted for the area. For example, of the 56,000 acres of CP23a originally available to playa lakes states, less than 2 percent has been enrolled since the program's inception in October 2004.

In a 'use it or lose it' directive, the Farm Service Agency recently asked states to predict how many acres of FWP, CP23a and other conservation programs would potentially be enrolled by December 31, 2007, and to rescind remaining acres back to the national CRP. As of this publication date, the PLJV has learned that Kansas, Texas and Colorado together have rescinded about 80,000 acres out of the original 90,000 allotted for FWP and CP23a combined, marking a dramatic decrease in wetland program acres available to landowners in those states. A similar loss in available program acreage is believed to have occurred in other JV member states as well.

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Playa Film Working to Increase Awareness, Change Attitudes
Viewers of the PLJV's new film, The Playas - Reflections of Life on the Plains, are three times more likely to think playas are a threatened resource than those who do not see the film. The change in attitudes toward playas was revealed through a follow-up survey of 48 participants from the original High Plains Landowner Survey after they had watched the film.

The follow-up survey posed six questions taken from the original survey and asked participants to answer them again after watching the film. The selected questions were specific to landowner awareness and attitudes toward playas. In the original survey, 24 percent of landowners said playas are a threatened resource. In the post-film follow-up survey, 72 percent of respondents said playas are threatened - a three-fold increase. Also in the original survey, 50 percent of landowners had heard of the term 'playa' before and 42 percent knew they were wetlands. After watching the film, 98 percent of viewers understood that playas are wetlands.

"Our evaluation suggests that this particular communications product is working to increase landowner awareness of and change attitudes toward playas, which are the two ultimate measures of success for the PLJV's communications goal." said PLJV Communications Team Leader Debbie Slobe. "We encourage our partners to double and triple their efforts to distribute this film to landowners."

To date, more than 3,000 films have been distributed by PLJV staff and partners to hundreds of landowners, educators, resource managers and media throughout the region. The film also recently made its television debut on the Portales, New Mexico PBS station on Nov. 1. The film is also available for viewing in streaming online format on the MyOutdoorTV website.

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PLJV Radio: LISTEN NOW
> Dec 4: Rivers of Yesterday and Today: Texas Panhandle native and biologist Jim Ray has seen dramatic changes in the Canadian, Cimarron, Washita and Red Rivers over his lifetime - and he's only 42.
> Dec 11: Making a Bird List and Checking it Twice: In its 107th year, the Christmas Bird Count brings together novice and expert birders for one of the biggest citizen-led bird surveys in the nation.
> Dec 18: Cross-Border Conservation: Many birds of the High Plains are also found in the prairies of Canada and northern Mexico at different times of the year. And like in the U.S., these bird habitats are facing an increasing barrage of threats.
> Dec 25: Opportunity Knocks for Western Nebraska Landowners: Stroll into TJ Walkers' office in North Platte, Nebraska, and you'll enter a treasure trove of opportunities for wildlife and rangeland conservation on private lands.

Playa Country airs on High Plains Public Radio Mondays at 10:30am and Saturdays at 11:15am, and on KPAN Radio in Hereford, TX at 11:55am (all times CST). If you don't get Playa Country in your neck of the prairie, you can listen online. Send story ideas to Debbie Slobe.

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Happenings Around the PLJV:
> Dec. 5 - Feb. 15: Playa exhibit on display at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge; Commerce City, CO
> Dec. 11 - 15: Joint Venture Conservation Business Model Roundtable; Austin, TX
> Dec. 14: Wes-Tex RC&D landowner association meeting, Muleshoe, TX; contact Cindy Poole
> Dec. 14 - Jan. 5: 107th Christmas Bird Count
> Dec. 15: Deadline to submit nominations for the National Wetlands Awards
> Dec. 31: Deadline to submit nominations for the Partners In Flight National Awards
> Jan. 11: Shortgrass Steppe Symposium, Colorado State University; Ft Collins, CO
> Jan. 15: Deadline to submit nominations for the Nebraska Partnership for All-Bird Conservation Awards.
> Jan. 16 - 18: PLJV Management Board Meeting, Quartz Mountain Resort, Oklahoma; contact Mike Carter
> Feb. 5 - 8: Flying Wild Bird Education Conference; Austin, TX
> Feb. 23 - 25: High Plains Snow Goose Festival, Lamar, CO; contact John Koshak
> Feb. 27 - March 1: Bird Monitoring and Detectability: Understanding and Applying Appropriate Methods, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO; contact David Klute
> March 16 - 18: Rivers and Wildlife Celebration and Nebraska Partnership for All-Bird Conservation Steering Committee Meeting; Kearney, NE

Half of All Landowners Don't Know Playas Recharge the Ogallala Aquifer
Despite JV partners' intensive playas-and-recharge outreach efforts, still half of all landowners in the PLJV region do not understand the link between playas and the Ogallala Aquifer.

About 50 percent of all surveyed landowners answered that they 'do not know' whether or not playas recharged the Ogallala Aquifer. The knowledge gap is spread fairly evenly among Bird Conservation Region (BCR) 18 and 19, but most evident in BCR 18 Colorado where 70 percent of landowners do not know playas recharge groundwater. The most aware region is BCR 18 Texas where only 16 percent of landowners do not know the connection.

"PLJV partners certainly have their work cut out for them in educating landowners about playas' link to the Ogallala Aquifer," Carter said. "We need to continue to drive the message that by protecting playas, landowners are protecting their bottom line."

Although many landowners are not aware that playas recharge groundwater, their concern for the Ogallala is quite high. Of 13 possible resources that might warrant additional conservation, such as native grasslands and at-risk species, landowners said they supported 'more conservation than now' for only one - the Ogallala Aquifer.

"We expect that as more landowners understand the link between playas and groundwater, we might see a change in how they perceive playas," Carter said. "Perhaps recharge will begin to edge out wildlife in landowners' minds as the most important playa benefit. And perhaps we'll see even more landowner willingness to conserve playas."