Conservation Partners

Ranchers, Our Best Hope for Bird Conservation?

Conservation-minded ranchers are breathing new life into the Kansas Grazing Lands Coalition (KGLC). Ranchers like Ted Alexander of Sun City who is the recipient of the 2007 National Environmental Stewardship Award.

“Ranchers are getting themselves organized, which is good,” said KGLC Coordinator Tim Christian. “They want to kick new life into this coalition. It all stems back from the desire to bring producers to a higher level of management and improve conservation.”

The KGLC formed more than a decade ago by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). But the group had stagnated over time. That is, until two years ago when Alexander and a few fellow ranchers asked NRCS to hire a coordinator to revive the coalition, which they did.

The agency hired experienced coalition-builder Tim Christian, who helped create and serves as coordinator for the Kansas Alliance for Wetlands and Streams (KAWS), and who, as an NRCS employee, helped secure funding for the KGLC 10 years ago.

The KGLC serves as the coordinating body for Kansas’ six local grazing associations. KGLC helps ranchers by providing opportunities to learn, a network of peers to learn from and improved communications, and by creating new local grazing groups. Four grazing associations operate within the PLJV boundaries: Comanche Pool Prairie Resource Foundation, Kansas Graziers Association, Smoky Hills Graziers and Post Rock Graziers.

Some of the ranch management issues KGLC is educating its members on are: prescribed burning, removal of invasive woody vegetation, and managed grazing to keep grasslands healthy – all of which can benefit birds.

“There is a lot of genuine interest from ranchers in what they are doing for habitat and how they are impacting species at risk,” Christian said.

There are more than 53 million acres of grasslands within the PLJV boundaries, making up 33% of the total area. In the Kansas portion of the JV, about 6 million acres are in grass, or 15%. Much of these lands are used as pasture by private ranches. Providing education, incentives and opportunities for ranchers to manage their land in harmony with wildlife is a major strategy of KGLC, the PLJV and partners.

“Private ranches constitute some of the best remaining expanses of native prairie habitat in the PLJV region,” said PLJV Coordinator Mike Carter. “Keeping those ranchers in business is good for birds.”

For more information on KGLC, contact Tim Christian. You can also listen to an interview with Ted Alexander on Playa Country Radio.

~November 2007

Land Trusts Help Preserve Land Legacy

With more than half of the farmers and ranchers in the PLJV region at or past retirement age, significant acreages are destined to change hands in the near future. Land will be sold off to other producers and developers, passed down to heirs, and rented out to other operators. But what about landowners who don’t want to lose control of their land, don’t have heirs and don’t want to see it lost to development? That’s where land trusts come in.

Land trusts can help preserve the natural legacy of land forever. They do this by entering into conservation easement agreements with landowners that place permanent limitations on land use, like prohibiting development. Landowners can either sell or donate easements to trusts, generating income and multiple tax benefits at the same time conserving their land.

There are several land trusts that operate in the PLJV region. Below is a partial listing. Also, learn more about how land trusts are helping rural communities on a recent Playa Country Radio interview with Lynne Sherrod, Western Policy Manager for the Land Trust Alliance.

Region-wide:

State-based:

For a more complete listing of land trusts operating in the PLJV region, view the state listings from the Land Trust Alliance.

~November 2007

Building Capacity for Conservation in the PLJV Region

The PLJV firmly believes that conserving habitat at the level necessary to sustain bird populations in the JV region requires lasting local support, collaboration and leadership. To that end, the JV has invested considerable funds and staff time into helping partners increase their capacity to collaborate locally to conserve habitat. Much of this investment has come through the State Capacity Grants program.

Since its inception in 2002, the Capacity Grant program has awarded $700,000 to member states ($20,000 per state per year) to improve their ability to carry out local conservation projects over the long term. The program is one of the JV’s most successful generators of habitat accomplishments. To date, Capacity Grants have helped create and support nearly a dozen local conservation partnerships resulting in more than 160,000 acres protected, enhanced and/or restored for wildlife value. View summaries of recent Capacity projects on the PLJV web site.

It is through these “local conservation partnerships”, or LCPs, that the lion’s share of the habitat work takes place. The PLJV highly encourages states to use Capacity Grant funding to develop such groups. The PLJV defines LCPs as groups of resource managers, landowners, community leaders, conservationists and others that work collaboratively to conserve the natural resources in their area — be it playas, prairie-chickens or everything in between. Partnerships can be formal — complete with bylaws and boards of directors — or informal, so long as they possess certain attributes that PLJV believes will lead to successful and sustained conservation.

These are:

  • Connections to landowners and local agency representatives
  • A structure for collaboration
  • Awareness of conservation needs
  • Access to habitat management options and information
  • Knowledge of and ability to access programs and funding
  • Ability to fund-raise
  • Ability to self-promote
  • A plan with measurable goals
  • Ability to understand and implement a biological plan
  • Ability to self-evaluate against stated goals
  • Long-term collaboration on a variety of conservation issues.

The intent of the program is not to support individual LCPs indefinitely. The aim is to help get these groups off the ground, provide them support and tools to conserve habitat, help develop their ability to sustain themselves, and then ‘set them free.’

Examples of LCPs that the State Capacity Grant program is currently assisting are the Prairie and Wetlands Focus Area Committee in southeast Colorado and the Platte River Basin Environments in western Nebraska. There is a whole host of other LCPs operating independently of direct PLJV involvement that are also achieving incredible results — as the Comanche Pool in south-central Kansas and the South Platte Focus Area Committee in northeastern Colorado. PLJV works to engage these ‘unaffiliated’ groups as well by promoting their conservation successes, providing access to our planning, and offering similar habitat conservation resources and tools as the JV does with LCPs ‘on the books.’

The PLJV plans to continue its support of LCPs and is always looking for new groups to take from hatchling to fledgling. If you have questions about the State Capacity Grant program, contact PLJV Coordinator Mike Carter. If you have a project or partnership you’d like to propose for funding through the program, you MUST contact the PLJV management board representative from your respective state wildlife agency. DO NOT send unsolicited proposals to the PLJV. The state agency management board members decide which proposals will ultimately be forwarded to the PLJV office. The PLJV is now accepting applications through Dec. 1, 2007 from states whose final proposal has been vetted through and approved by their board member.

Mike Carter talks about the importance of locally-led conservation efforts on Playa Country Radio.

~October 2007