Nature Noted

A site to check out

2006-03-21T19:05:00.000-06:00

No, we didn't lose access to the internet or electricity here in Memphis. My semi-regular blogging has been less regular lately, but I shake out of Greta Garbo land to pass along an interesting website. It's Ecosystemmarketplace.comand it's an eclectic mix of news, opinion and eco-market tracking. A particular article of note is on the lessons learned from the collapse of a California land trust. Interesting reading, interesting site.
Ok, back into my hole now.

Urban Land Trusts

2006-02-23T19:30:00.000-06:00

Land trusts aren't just for wilderness. Here's a plea for for Urban Trusts as well.

Accreditation Board Named

2006-02-16T07:04:00.000-06:00

The Land Trust Alliance has announced the formation of its new commission to oversee land trust accreditation. The "Land Trust Accreditation Commission: An Independent Program of the Land Trust Alliance" will consist of 13 members.
This is the next step in the LTA's promise to Congress to set accreditation standards across the country to cut down on conservation easement tax abuses.

Those named are:
CHAIR
Larry Kueter (CO)
Counsel, Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust
Attorney, Isaacson Rosenbaum PC
Board Member, Land Trust Alliance

VICE CHAIR
David MacDonald (ME)
Director of Land Protection
Maine Coast Heritage Trust

SECRETARY
Ann Taylor Schwing (CA)
Attorney, McDonough Holland & Allen PC
Board Member
Land Trust of Napa County

TREASURER
Katherine Imhoff (VA)
Chairwoman, Virginia Outdoors Foundation
Vice President for Planning and Facilities, Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc.

COMMISSIONERS
Elizabeth Crane (GA)
Program Manager
Forest Legacy, U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service

David Hartwell (MN)President, Bellcomb Technologies Inc.
Board Member, Land Trust Alliance

Lucinda Hunt-Stowell (CT)
Board Member, Southbury Land Trust
Chairwoman, Flanders Nature Center and Land Trust

Jennifer Lorenz (TX)
Executive Director, Legacy Land Trust

Marc Smiley (OR)
Marc Smiley Organizational Development
Board Member, Columbia Land Trust

Peter Stein (NH)
Partner, Lyme Timber and LTC Conservation Advisory Services

Henry Tepper (NY)
New York State Director
The Nature Conservancy

Wesley Ward (MA)
Director of Land Conservation
The Trustees of Reservations

Michael Whitfield (ID)
Executive Director
Teton Regional Land Trust

Great Bear Rising

2006-02-08T06:58:00.000-06:00

After years of wrangling and debate, The Great Bear Rainforest is about to become one of the largest protected areas in North America. The new park is the result of years of negotiations between the Canadian government, environmental groups, logging companies and native, or First Nation tribes.
The Great Bear Rainforest is located on B.C.'s north and central coast.
Covering more than six million hectares, it is one of the world's largest intact temperate rainforests. The largely roadless area is laced with salmon rivers and has large populations of grizzly bears and white "spirit" bears, which are a rare genetic variation of black bears....
The Nature Conservancy press release has details on the plan to transform the economy of the area from extraction based to a more sustainable one.
Ecosystem-based management in the Great Bear Rainforest seeks to direct the sustainable and cautious use of resources at all scales, from broad landscapes to individual plants.
At the landscape level, a network of new and existing protected areas extending over 5 million acres will protect a core of ecologically and culturally significant areas from logging and other industrial uses. These areas provide the most secure habitat for sensitive native plants and animals, such as the white Spirit bear and many of the most productive salmon streams.
At the watershed level, such as a 20,000-acre river valley, management plans will set aside reserves where little or no resource extraction takes place. These reserves will maintain wildlife habitat and travel corridors, protect waterways and preserve specific values such as threatened species, sensitive soils and cultural, scenic and recreational areas.
At the site level, such as a 250-acre timber stand, forest harvesters will design their logging plans to retain individual trees, or groups of trees, to maintain key habitat features such as streamside forest cover, trees for nesting, or bear or wolf den sites. Logging plans will also seek to sustain ecological process by, for example, leaving large fallen trees in rivers where they form pools and side channels necessary for salmon.
As in every negotiation, the idea was to give all the parties a little something.... but the import of this deal is to protect a huge area... what TNC is calling 25% of the world's remaining temperate rainforest. A remarkable achievement.
Here's a link to a photo essay on the park.

Marty Bender

2006-02-05T12:40:00.000-06:00

I didn't know Marty Bender, but after obituary on the home page of the Land Institute, I thought what a shame he won't be around as the country debates the future of using our natural resources. Here's an excerpt..
"Historian and Land Institute board member Donald Worster said he once asked Bender for a few facts about energy consumption on a Kansas farm.
"Back in the mail came a response that must have taken him several hours to assemble — far more information than I needed, all given in a spirit of selfless generosity that characterized Marty to the core. Besides his family, he lived for The Land Institute and its research programs."
Bender's answers were both blunt and exacting, what institute board Chairman Conn Nugent called a "tough theology":
"Will biofuels one day power an expanding American economy? No way, says Marty: You could grow fuel crops on every square inch of North America, and still fall way short of the net energy provided by the contemporary supply of fossil fuels. Solar panels? Wind machines? Hybrid vehicles? Sure, Marty would say, those are good things. Just don't expect them to let you live in the style to which you've become accustomed."
Tough theology, tough answers. A reminder that our greatest natural resource is smart, curious and honest people.

No Going Back?

2006-01-29T08:38:00.000-06:00

Depressed yet? If not, this article should do the trick
"Now that most scientists agree human activity is causing Earth to warm, the central debate has shifted to whether climate change is progressing so rapidly that, within decades, humans may be helpless to slow or reverse the trend.
This "tipping point" scenario has begun to consume many prominent researchers in the United States and abroad, because the answer could determine how drastically countries need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years. While scientists remain uncertain when such a point might occur, many say it is urgent that policymakers cut global carbon dioxide emissions in half over the next 50 years or risk the triggering of changes that would be irreversible.

It's getting hot in here

2006-01-25T06:54:00.000-06:00

2005 warmest year in last 100 years.... and that's without any major weather disturbances.... yikes.
2005 warmest year on record:NASA.
LATE ADD
"Here's a striking fact from the NASA press release: Since 1890 the global average temperature has increased about 1.4 degrees F., but a full degree of that has been in just the past three decades. It's a different world than the one many of us were born into. And the bad thing about wrecking the Earth is that it's not the kind of thing where you're given a do-over."
..Yes, I'm getting my science from a humorist... but read the rest of Joel Achenbach and his reader's comments in the Washington Post.

They like you, they really like you....

2006-01-24T06:44:00.000-06:00

Folks at The Nature Conservancy should be feeling pretty good about themselves. A nationwide Harris Poll found TNC to be the most trusted among 13 national large non-profits. That's great news for an organization that's been rocked by investigations in recent years over controversial easement practices. Looking at the results, it's clear that most people still view TNC, and I think land trusts in general, as a non-controversial organization.
According to the poll, of those who are familiar with it, 27% of respondants trust TNC a "great deal" with 52% marking "fair amount" for a combined "trust" rating of 79%. Only 16% said "not very much" and 4 % were at "not at all".
The AARP finished second on the trust rankings, the Sierra Club came in fifth with 59% trust. Greenpeace came in with a somewhat surprising 56% trust. I say surprising because the more controversial the organization, the lower its scores tended to be. The NRA and AFL-CIO came in at the bottom.
Part of the reason for the high TNC score may be a lack of familiarity. Only 47% of respondants said they were familiar with it. The groups with the highest negatives also had the highest level of familiarity. 90% of those polled knew what the NRA was, 81% know Greenpeace.
An interesting breakdown shows that Democrats & Independents trust TNC the most... at 85% & 80%. Republicans lagged behind at 68%. (Republicans liked the Chamber of Commerce & the Business Roundtable the most).
So the poll indicates both good things, and work for TNC, (as well as the Sierra Club).
The good news is that the recent Senate investigations and newspaper series haven't shaken the trust of people who know what TNC does, but only a bare majority of Americans are even familiar with the organization. So while there is work to be done, so far, so good.

Saving the Camp

2006-01-21T09:18:00.000-06:00

A campaign is underway to keep America's first Boy Scout camp from being developed. Camp Owasippe is a 48 hundred acre camp on Lake Michigan that has been used by Chicago area Boy Scouts for decades. The Scout Council has decided it can't afford to keep it anymore, and wants to sell it for development as a residential subdivision. Land Choices is organizing an opposition campaign to the rezoning. You can sign the petition opposing the plan and learn more about the camp at the link.

Highlighting The Comments

2006-01-14T08:55:00.000-06:00

I know it's a little redundant to repost comments... but a recent exchange is worth pointing out. Tim Abbott of Walking the Berkshires posted a thoughtful comment (and officially the longest one in the history of Nature Noted!) on the Block Island acquisition noted below. Tim raises questions about funding priorities. The response from Anonymous (that guy is everywhere) continues the dialogue. Check them both out, and let's continue the dialogue. This is fun. Thanks to both for their comments.

Tim Abbott said...
Pat, the Block Island conservation deal you describe raises more than just eyebrows at the extraordinary costs associated with land protection in such areas with extremely high real estate values.

For starters, TNC's internal funding mechanism has long given that organization great flexibility to close projects before all the donations have been secured. Clearly, in high wealth places like Block Island or the nearby Massachusetts Islands, there is the expectation that those borrowed funds will be reimbursed from local sources. However, the Land Protection Fund or LPF is used by the entire organization, and in recent years its available resources have been almost fully committed. Repayment with interest is usually expected in 36 months, but the Block island case does beg the question of whether hugely expensive projects like this should be tapping the LPF, or instead developing and leveraging other sources of funding so that projects in less wealthy areas - but no less deserving of conservation funding -have secure access to internal LPF loans.

A second consideration is more philosophiocal: namely,whether
the conservation value of the land protected on Block Island is worth the effort and expense required to conserve it. I mean no disrespect toward what are clearly deeply important cultural, aesthetic, and ecological values associated with land on Block Island. A great deal of protection has taken place there, and clearly there are donors willing to support such expensive protection projects. But I would hope that there is also an open and honest assessment by TNC, as a global conservation organization with many priorities, of whether it can or should continue to expend such resources on high cost protection in such places, or whether there are other methods to use on Block Island and protection efforts elsewhere that should receive priority.

Of course, just because conservation organizations can raise $12 million dollars for a project on Block Island - or $64 million for another or Martha's Vineyard, for that matter - doesn't mean those resources can be easily reallocated. A unilateral policy of reallocation would in any case challenge the intent of many donors. But setting priorities should challenge TNC to consider alternatives to hugely expensive land deals with small acreages unless those acres are the most irreplaceable and important conservation land the organization could be protecting in that ecoregion. Going to scale, after all, should be going to the "appropriate" scale to conserve the conservation target, and sometimes that doesn't need to be very large.

I also realize that we are dealing with highly relative values here. After all, how does one compare something like a small patch of sandplain grassland in one place with 25,000 acres of boreal forest in another? But surely a conservation vision for the North Atlantic Coast Ecoregion, in which Block Island is a component part, will have to grapple with how much highly expensive land protection can and should be accomplished as part of TNC's overall conservation strategy.

The partnership between TNC and the Block Island Land Trust is commendable. TNC's entire approach to conservation area planning has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. I am sure the Rodman's Hollow area is still a high priority for the Block Island Land Trust, and I'd be interested in knowing how it contributes to Conserving TNC's ecoregional portfolio targets within the North Atlantic Coast.

A friend with TNC on Martha's Vineyard, Tom Chase, has advocated the need there for an "undevelopment" strategy, since most of his "conservastion targets" lack sufficent size or representation on the island to meet minimal viability thresholds. Does this reflect the situation on Block Island as well, and how does protecting these acres contribute toward reaching those viability goals?

I'd be curious to know what others may think.
8:35 PM
Anonymous said...
Tim Abbott makes thoughtful, well-informed points. Some random thoughts: As a Rhode Islander who has followed TNC's efforts here for some time, I'm glad to see that they're sticking to priorities and places (Block Island is one of their "10 Last Best Places," or whatever the phrase is)to which they've already devoted their scientific and their financial resources. For better or worse, conservation groups have become big players in the real estate markets of the coastal communities in this region. There seems to be some sense in securing remaining major parcels now, partly to protect the resources already purchased in the same area. The prices seem ridiculous now, but they may appear cheap a few years from now. TNC is doing its job protecting natural resources in these areas. I worry about the cultural prospects of some of these coastal communities, but they will face those challenges anyway simply because of their location. TNC and other organizations should of course be adaptable, but they are probably in a better position than, say, government agencies to carry out long-term acquisition and management policies without being buffeted by shifting political winds or scary real-estate prices.

Speaking of Expensive

2006-01-12T07:07:00.000-06:00

This one won't come cheap, either... Check out The Nature Conservancy Partners With 100 Groups To Save Most Significant 25,000 Acres Of Open Space & 10,000 Acres Farmland On (Long Island) ......“Long Island’s Last Stand” Initiative Aims to Preserve Long Island’s Quality of Life

One Expensive Block

2006-01-11T19:06:00.000-06:00

It's the old real estate saw, location, location, location. And just as you pay more for that house in the hot neighborhood, so land trusts have to pay more for property with a high development value. That's also why The Nature Conservancy and the Block Island Trust were willing to buy 40 acrews on Rhode Island's Block Island for a cool $12 million.
On Wednesday, Dec. 28, The Nature Conservancy and the Block Island Land Trust completed a transaction to conserve 40 acres of land just south of Rodmanís Hollow. This property has been a conservation priority for more than 20 years, completing the visionary work in this area begun by Capt. John R. "Robî" Lewis in 1972, and added to throughout the years.
This unique and spectacular tract abuts Rodmanís Hollow to the north and Black Rock to the west. It is perhaps the most ecologically significant, undeveloped, unprotected property remaining on Block Island, and one that many people thought was already conserved.
In addition to the conservation value of this property, it will allow for a continuation of the walking trails in Rodmanís Hollow to finally reach Black Rock (as opposed to walking on the old road). It will also ensure that the beach access and parking at Tomís Cove, a popular fishing and surfing spot, remains open to the public. Also as a result of this transaction, the town will have an improved and widened Snake Hole Road beach access.
The transaction has four components. First, The Nature Conservancy, with the help of the Block Island Land Trust, purchased 25 acres (two tracts) for $7,070,000, its fair market value, from the Jones family. Second, The Nature Conservancy received the outright donation of another 2-acre parcel from the Jones family. Third, The Nature Conservancy accepted the donation of a 13-acre conservation easement from Graham and Gay Jones. Finally, the Town of New Shoreham, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, Graham and Gay Jones, and The Nature Conservancy entered into a joint management agreement for the Rodmanís Hollow/Black Rock area that will ensure public access and appropriate public use for the area in perpetuity.
With the gifts of land and easements, the total value of this transaction exceeds $12 million, the highest-value Block Island conservation transaction ever. Of the $7,070,000 purchase price, the Land Trust has agreed to pay for almost half, and The Nature Conservancy will pay the balance. This necessitated The Nature Conservancy to secure a substantial loan from its internal revolving Land Preservation Fund. This is The Nature Conservancyís largest debt ever incurred on a single Block Island transaction.

Green Ranches

2006-01-10T20:06:00.000-06:00

The Green Ranching movement is getting a little bit of buzz this week. The Arizona Republic has the story of how the Grand Canyon Trust and the Conservation Fund have become among the biggest ranch owners in Arizona.
In one of the largest deals of its kind, Two Mile Ranch and neighboring Kane Ranch were sold last year to Grand Canyon Trust and the Conservation Fund, environmental groups trying to position themselves on the leading edge of the so-called green ranch movement.
Guided by a detailed ecological study of the ranches and the accompanying grazing allotments, the groups want to restore depleted springs and forest areas and drive out invasive weeds and shrubs. They plan to unleash an army of volunteers to clean up the battered rangelands that sit along the Grand Canyon and include some of the West's most iconic landscapes.
Amid those audacious plans, ranching will continue. As much as the groups might like to end ranching on their corner of the plateau, they can't. Federal laws don't allow a new owner to take over grazing permits and just not use them, which means the trust and the fund must buy cattle and run a ranch on nearly 850,000 acres of high Arizona desert.
They also must work within federal land-management rules. The groups own fewer than 1,100 acres; the rest is public land, open to recreation, to hunting and still subject to laws that were written to encourage multiple uses.
The groups, which have questioned the value of open-range grazing in the past, see the irony of their situation and often point it out themselves.
"We still think we're the best option out there," said Rick Moore, director of the Kane and Two Mile ranch program for the trust. "For a traditional permit-holder, the tendency might be to graze more cows. We can do the opposite. We're driven by ecological needs, not economic. We can put money back into the land because we're not trying to put kids through college."
Meanwhile, the San Diego Union-Tribune has a nice column on Green Ranching... noting similar efforts in California..
Times are slowly changing.
Capitalizing on growing public concern about food safety, some ranchers now specialize in grass-fed beef. Rather than spending their last months in feedlots shot full of antibiotics, these cattle live more like their 19th century ancestors. A recent tax-code provision (some call it a loophole) encourages ranchers to go organic, to keep grasslands free of herbicides and pesticides – and out of development. In the past, environmental groups have mostly opposed range grazing, a position that, ironically, has put them at odds with the organic, grass-fed beef proponents. But that predisposition may be moderating.
In 1997, ranchers formed the nonprofit, rancher-run California Rangeland Trust, primarily to keep rangelands in agriculture. "As California's population continues to grow, ranchers should begin to recognize the value of undisturbed landscapes to those seeking experiences outside of their urban environment," according to a report by the University of California's Integrated Hardwood Range Management Program, which praises the trust – and then adds a twist:
Much of the state's native grassland vegetation evolved in the presence of grazing animals – and may be genetically programmed for grazing. "To be sure, cattle are not the same as mastodons, camels, ancient horses and bison that once grazed here, but their use of the land may better reflect that historical use than if they are excluded entirely," according to the report.
No question about it, better grazing techniques are needed, but cows certainly pose less of a threat to grassland or oak forests than do housing tracts.
And this weekend, the Quivira Coalition will have its 5th annual conference in Albuquerque, "Bridging the Urban - Rural Divide: Reconnecting People to Land and Each Other..
Courtney White and the Quivira Coalition have been the biggest proponents of the notion that there's a place for ranching and good environmental practices to coexist... living in the Radical Center. The conference has an impressive agenda and list of speakers. If you happen to be hanging out in New Mexico this weekend with nothing to do, go check it out. It's all the buzz.

Sacred Trust

2006-01-05T06:53:00.000-06:00

Many people view nature as a touch of the divine, but some places are a little more sacred than others. Case in point, Bear Butte, South Dakota.. More than 60 Native American tribes consider the mountain to be sacred, but as with the rest of the Black Hills, development is beginning to encroach. That's why an effort is underway to start a land trust designed to preserve the peace and quiet of their sacred spot.
" A land trust fund was seen as the only permanent solution to stopping the selling of land surrounding the small, sacred mountain. The organization was able to stop the building of an outdoor shooting range that was planned on a location four miles north of the Butte. The businessmen planning the venture had illegally received federal funds that were supposed to benefit low and middle-income people. The illegality was uncovered in a lawsuit filed by the Defenders of the Black Hills and seven Native American tribes.
But now a private operator is planning on building a biker bar and outdoor concert arena just one and a half miles from the base of the mountain.
Since many people want to help protect the land surrounding Bear Butte, the organization decided that opening a land trust fund would allow everyone the opportunity to do fund raising events and contribute to the fund. The price of the land surrounding the Butte is high as realtors use the sacred mountain in their advertisements.
Defenders plan on keeping any land that they are able to purchase in a natural state to insure the sacredness of Bear Butte is not disturbed.
The organization recently received their designation as a tax-exempt non-profit organization capable of receiving gifts and donations. They work on environmental and sacred site issues in the Midwest with no paid staff.
Donations to the Bear Butte Land Trust Fund may be sent to Wells Fargo Bank, 825 St. Joseph St., Rapid City, SD 57701. Bank transfers are also available by contacting any Wells Fargo Bank. "
Yeah, nothing like a biker bar and concert arena to help you in your efforts to achieve one with the cosmos. And don't you love the fact that the reason the property cost is high, is because "the sacred mountain" is used in advertisements? Let's hope the Bear Butte Land Trust gets up and going soon.

Saving The Not So Cute

2006-01-04T06:33:00.000-06:00

The NY Times had an article yesterday that talked about the human trait to be drawn to, and to try to protect the "cute things" of the world. Like pandas, penguins and little puppy dogs. The story even goes so far as to opine that we're now even buying "cute" things like a Prius or Mini-Cooper instead of those not-so-cute SUV's. (I think gas mileage might have a little more to that than the cute factor.)
"Scientists who study the evolution of visual signaling have identified a wide and still expanding assortment of features and behaviors that make something look cute: bright forward-facing eyes set low on a big round face, a pair of big round ears, floppy limbs and a side-to-side, teeter-totter gait, among many others.
Cute cues are those that indicate extreme youth, vulnerability, harmlessness and need, scientists say, and attending to them closely makes good Darwinian sense. As a species whose youngest members are so pathetically helpless they can't lift their heads to suckle without adult supervision, human beings must be wired to respond quickly and gamely to any and all signs of infantile desire.
The human cuteness detector is set at such a low bar, researchers said, that it sweeps in and deems cute practically anything remotely resembling a human baby or a part thereof, and so ends up including the young of virtually every mammalian species, fuzzy-headed birds like Japanese cranes, woolly bear caterpillars, a bobbing balloon, a big round rock stacked on a smaller rock, a colon, a hyphen and a close parenthesis typed in succession.
The greater the number of cute cues that an animal or object happens to possess, or the more exaggerated the signals may be, the louder and more italicized are the squeals provoked.
Cuteness is distinct from beauty, researchers say, emphasizing rounded over sculptured, soft over refined, clumsy over quick. Beauty attracts admiration and demands a pedestal; cuteness attracts affection and demands a lap. Beauty is rare and brutal, despoiled by a single pimple. Cuteness is commonplace and generous, content on occasion to cosegregate with homeliness.
Observing that many Floridians have an enormous affection for the manatee, which looks like an overfertilized potato with a sock puppet's face, Roger L. Reep of the University of Florida said it shone by grace of contrast. "People live hectic lives, and they may be feeling overwhelmed, but then they watch this soft and slow-moving animal, this gentle giant, and they see it turn on its back to get its belly scratched," said Dr. Reep, author with Robert K. Bonde of "The Florida Manatee: Biology and Conservation."
"That's very endearing," said Dr. Reep. "So even though a manatee is 3 times your size and 20 times your weight, you want to get into the water beside it."
I'll buy that we have a tendency to be attracted to the cute. Which gives a biological edge to those species that meet our instinctive cute-bias.
So you have to admire efforts to preserve the "non-cute" as well. In Florida, one effort involves preserving what little is left of the Florida Scrub, a non-cute name if there ever was one.
"Scrub is the unglamorous name for the Florida ecosystem that's similar to a desert. Sparsely populated by shrubs instead of trees with dry, sugary sand, it has one of the highest concentrations of endangered plant species in the United States. The ridge is the only home to 16 plants listed as endangered by the federal government, according to researchers at Archbold Biological Station in Lake Placid.
"Our existence on the planet Earth is lessened every time we lose one of our fellow inhabitants," Steve Morrison of The Nature Conservancy said of the need to preserve the ridge's unique ecosystem.
Though less well-known than the Everglades, the Lake Wales Ridge scrub is the oldest ecosystem in Florida. Today only about 15 percent of the scrub ecosystem that once existed in Florida survives. Much of the land was turned into citrus groves and ranch land, and more recently, housing developments."
In the scrub lives non-cute things like rare plants and fungi... which are are a bit hard to get excited about.
Now if they can only find some indigenous scrub pandas.... the effort might really get going.

Won't be missing 2005

2005-12-31T08:58:00.000-06:00

What a year. Hurricanes, War, Global Warming, Pestilence, and now Jon's bailing on The Uneasy Chair. I'm so glad 2005 is heading out the door. I only hope and pray that 2006 is a happier year for everyone.
For many, including my family, 2005 will always be the year of Katrina. The world will be broken down into life before and after the storm. On the human scale, I expect that there will be fewer people living along the gulf coast in 2006. Many of the evacuees just have nothing to return to. I wait to see if this truly will be one of those seminal events that forces all of us to reevaluate how we live with nature, how we protect ourselves, and how we respond to the needs of our neighbors. I fear Katrina will be a harbinger of other, greater challenges we will face from a changing environment.
The Year of Land Trust Reform
2005 will also be a landmark year for land trusts. Under heavy pressure from the Senate Finance Committee, trusts have begun down the road of greater accountability and toward more organizational professionalization. In April, the Finance Committee began its hearings on conservation easements and whether the program had suffered such abuse that it should be shut down. Thankfully, the answer was no. And for that, I credit the effort by the LTA and all of its members to convice the Senate that legitimate trusts want reform. The LTA's accreditation plan and other suggestions accomplished the purpose of providing a roadmap toward greater accountability. (Here's the synopsis I posted explaining the proposed changes.) But those changes may also spell the end for small, local trusts that won't have the resources to comply with the requirements. That sparked a heartfelt debate over the future of the Land Trust Movement. I do think it's inevitable that we will see more land trust bankruptcies as all of this shakes out.
The Year of Alternate Media
2005 has also been the year of the explosion in alternate media. From blogs to Ipods, choices abound. It's been a nervous time for folks like me, who pay the mortgage by working in Mainstream Media. Blogging is fun, but except for a select few it is not a money making proposition. But as in all revolutions, it's both a frightening and exhilarating time. Just by playing around with this little blog I've learned so much about the world that frankly I wouldn't know if I stuck to my normal diet of newspapers, magazines and television. I've also had the chance to meet some fascinating folks in cyber space. I really will miss reading Jon Christensen each day, although he promises not to completely disappear from the scene. Jon's nordic cousin Tom Andersen not only keeps us updated on the latest LNG terminal news but also his hobnobbing with all sorts of critters on Long Island. (My blog's still worth more than yours, Tom!)
Finally, I've met some even more far flung folks, learning about life above the Arctic Circle. Seriously, have you looked to see how far north Arctic Bay really is?.
To those of you who take a few minutes out of your day to check in here, thanks. I hope you've learned a few thing, and that you'll keep stopping by in the new year. Happy 2006 everyone.

Merry Christmas to All

2005-12-22T19:37:00.000-06:00

We're off to Texas for Christmas. If you're still looking for gift ideas, check out The Uneasy Chair for an end of the year list of great book suggestions. I'm sticking with my book suggestion of the year 1491 by Charles Mann. I guarantee you won't look at the natural history of the Americas in the same way again.
In the meantime, Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah and a joyous whatever else you and yours may celebrate.

Preserved But Not Protected

2005-12-22T10:34:00.000-06:00

Preserved, but not protected. That's the title of a new report from the Connecticut Council on Environmental Quality (warning, it's a big file). The report outlines the problem of keeping preserved land in its intended state. There's a press release here, as well as a good synopsis in New Times Live. Among the problems...
"The report contains some blatant examples of abuse. One man cut 131 trees down in a state park to improve the view from his nearby home. In Redding, the problem was the opposite, said Mary Ann Guitar, president of the Redding Land Trust, which owns about 1,500 acres.
"We had someone going onto our land planting trees because they didn't like the view they had," she said.
A survey of 78 land trusts in the state showed that the majority of them have seen their lands abused in some way. That often puts the trust land managers, whether volunteers or paid staff, in a tough position.
"We're often trying to protect a piece of property in a town, where maintaining good relationships with people is important," said Hunter Brawley, the manager of the Naromi Land Trust in Sherman, which owns about 800 acres and has conservation easements on another 300 acres. "So you can't take a confrontational approach."
Not every trust has seen such abuse. Bill Montgomery, president of the Swampfield Land Trust in Danbury said it's not had serious problems on its 131 acres.
Another recurring theme is abuse by some ATV riders.
The damage done by people driving all-terrain vehicles takes up a major part of the report.
"Use of ATVs on public and private preserved land is commonplace and it is virtually all illegal," the report says.
"ATVs are catastrophic," said White.
Both White and Brawley said one of the main problems for land trusts is that they often own property that abuts utility line rights-of-way. ATV riders start out on the utility roads, then veer off into the woods.
At the 654-acre Tarrywile Park in Danbury, there's been severe damage to some park trails by ATV riders, said Sandra Moy, the park's director. That forced the city to pass an ordinance banning them on city land she said.
"In the last couple of years, we've had much less ATV damage here," she said. "It may simply be the kids who were coming over here grew up and stopped riding ATVs."
The report also makes several recommendations to help toughen enforcement of existing laws.
"including changing state laws to penalize violators the true cost of the damage they cause. It urges the state Attorney General's office to pursue these cases with much more vigor, and also urges the state to establish a strict "No Encroachment" policy and then enforce it.
The report also urged the General Assembly to increase funding to the state DEP so that it can hire more conservation officers.
DEP spokesman Dennis Schain said the agency now has 24 non-marine conservation officers to patrol all state-owned land. When the boating season ends, Schain said, the 31 marine officers can help out with the patrols.
But the council said that in 1992, the DEP had 32 non-marine officers, which, even then, was considered inadequate to the job. At the very least, Wagener said the General Assembly should aim to getting back to that 1992 level.
"In the short run, that's probably not going to happen," he said. "But it should be the state's goal to get there within the next two or three years."
It should be noted the report deals with problems both on land owned by trusts and the state. Hiring more conservation officers won't help much with the problems on land owned by trusts.
This is a reminder to all in the land trust movement that just accumulating property doesn't do much good, if the money for monitoring and maintaining it isn't there as well.

Willacy's Lunacy

2005-12-21T07:34:00.000-06:00

A few more details on Willacy County's (TX) plans to condemn a TNC nature preserve on South Padre Island so the county can have a ferry landing to boost tourism. You might ask, how did we get to the point that the county leaders feel that eminent domain was their only option? The apparent answer is that the county leaders are so utterly incompetent, they have bungled every other option.
An earlier article in the San Antonio Express News has a good timeline on the entire mess. Apparently, this county leaders have been kicking this idea around for years.... but despite having plenty of time to think about it, they haven't exactly worked out the details.
According to the article ...
The county and the local navigation district had intermittent discussions with the Nature Conservancy in 2003 and 2004 about the ferry plan, but (TNC state director Carter) Smith said details were sparse.
"There were some fairly elementary questions we asked and just never received any kind of response," Smith said. "Like how many bathrooms and where would they be placed, and who would accompany people from the ferry landing to the beach?"
The failure to come to an agreement was one of the many issues that prompted the Texas General Land Office in February to terminate a $700,000 grant earmarked for the project.
The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration awarded Willacy County the money in 2002. But the state Land Office, which administered the money, decided there were too many outstanding issues with the project.
The Land Office cited many reasons for terminating the grant. Chief among them, the amphibious vehicle the county suggested using was authorized by the Coast Guard to go no more than 1,000 feet offshore — well short of the nearly 10 miles needed for the craft to make it to the proposed landing area, Land Office spokesman Jim Suydam said.
Other reasons included the county's lack of a business plan and inability to meet Americans with Disabilities Act standards.
"They mentioned the idea of obtaining the land through condemnation, but NOAA doesn't approve projects through land condemnation," Suydam added. "And condemnation of land to avoid conservation restrictions would also raise some serious reservations from NOAA."
So the county can't even figure out how many bathrooms it would need. It doesn't have the right kind of ferry. It can't come up with a plan that the funding agency can agree to. It has no way to meet federal ADA standards. It doesn't even have a basic business plan. So despite all of that, the county attorney still wants to go to court and forcibly seize 1,500 acres of private property? Uh, well, sure.
County Attorney Juan Angel Guerra said the issue boils down to providing beach access for the residents of his county. And while he admits the project probably won't require all 1,548 acres, he said the commission decided to target the whole preserve, at least initially, "to show them that we are serious about getting access to that part of the county."
They may be incompetent, but at least they're serious. One has to hope that the county leaders will soon come to their senses. Or that if they do go to court, the judge will throw them out on their greedy keisters. But it really is chilling that we could get to this point. One more argument for restricting eminent domain.

The Boreal Alternative

2005-12-20T07:01:00.000-06:00

While Congress fights over opening ANWR to oil drilling, a coalition of environmentalists, Indian groups and big business are presenting an alternative vision of how to responsibly develop the Canadian Arctic.
A press release out yesterday lays out the latest step in the Canadian Boreal Initiative, an effort to protect 1.4 billion (yes, Billion) acres of the north country.
A leading Canadian investment firm and the world's largest nonprofit conservation organization are endorsing a national
vision that balances protection of ecological and cultural values with responsible economic development across Canada's 1.4 billion acre Boreal forest region, the Canadian Boreal Initiative announced today.
Known as the Boreal Forest Conservation Framework, the vision calls for protection of at least 50 percent of Canada's Boreal region and world-class sustainable development practices on the remaining landscape. Today's new signatories - the Ethical Funds Company, Canada's original and largest manager of socially responsible mutual funds and The Nature Conservancy - join the 11 other leading conservation organizations, First Nations, and forestry and energy companies that launched the Framework. Since its launch two years ago, the Framework has been increasingly attracting the attention of Canadian decision-makers, as well as the North American marketplace.
The Ethical Funds is working on lending policies that support the goals of biodiversity protection. The Nature Conservancy is going to be lending its expertise" in science and land use planning, as well as its significant relationships with key industry partners."
So what exactly is the vision? An editorial originally published in USA Today lays it out.
"A sharply focused organization known as the Canadian Boreal Initiative (CBI) has emerged as a top-level player in shaping the future of the Mackenzie basin and the course of development across Canada's boreal region - at 1.4 billion acres stretching across the northern brow of the continent, one of the largest contiguous forestlands in the world. Working closely with all the various interests, led by respected conservationists and scientists and funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts (a major U.S. public charity that promotes environmental conservation), the CBI has fostered a plan as wide as the boreal landscape itself.
Titled the Boreal Forest Conservation Framework, this charter calls for preserving at least 50% of the entire boreal in perpetuity and ensuring ecologically sound, sustainable development of the rest. Instead of preservationists and developers waging an endless series of pitched battles where there are only victories and defeats, the traditional opponents are cooperating as environmental stewards, in conjunction with local and national government agencies. The Mackenzie basin, teetering on the edge of massive change, is a key testing ground that the CBI hopes will supply a workable vision for development across Canada.
The framework's signers agree that Canada's boreal is far more than a convenient, big-box store of raw materials. In fact, the boreal's primary value might well be environmental. It's one of the largest carbon sinks in the world, in essence a massive air filter that pulls billions of tons of climate-warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and locks it into the peaty soil. And, to make the point more concrete that Canadians and Americans share that same air and have a highly vested interest in that fact, consider that more than 325 American bird species, as many as 3 billion birds in all, migrate to the boreal to feed and raise their young each spring. Up to 17% of the birds at backyard feeders in the lower 48 states and 38% of waterfowl are equally Canadian. Without the boreal, they wouldn't exist.
The Boreal Initiative is interesting because it may offer a template for the use of other wild areas around the world, including the U.S. It will be worth watching to see how this development plan develops.

Nature Preserve Facing Condemnation

2005-12-18T20:33:00.000-06:00

In what is being called an unprecedented action, a county in Texas has begun condemnation proceedings against an entire nature preserve owned by The Nature Conservancy on South Padre Island. The issue is over a plan to open a ferry service between the mainland and the island in an attempt to foster tourism. TNC has owned the 1,500 acre preserve on the island for five years, and wants to maintain the pristine condition of the wilderness area. Willacy County officials see the wild island as a tourist draw, and need a 3 to 5 acre site on the island for a ferry landing. Without the site, no state money would be available for the service. So after a stalemate, the county is pulling out its big option, eminent domain.
According to the Houston Chronicle TNC's state director is outraged.
''They're proposing to condemn an entire nature preserve, which is without precedent in this state," said Carter Smith, the group's state director. ''It's alarming, especially for all of us who care about protecting the barrier island and the Laguna Madre."
''I'm not aware of any instance in the Nature Conservancy's 40-year history in Texas in which a local government has attempted to condemn a nature preserve," Smith said. ''We will be fighting this vigorously."
"Conservancy officials said that in the past, they and county officials discussed access to the preserve, which lines the south side of the Port Mansfield channel.
But county officials then would provide few details of their plans, Carter said.
Carter called the threatened condemnation ''a real assault on the sanctity of private property rights and private land conservation in this state."
County leaders said there is no intent to offer any Conservancy land for private development, which would violate a new state law that placed restrictions on land condemnation by Texas governmental bodies.
Gov. Rick Perry allowed the Texas eminent domain legislation to be added to a special legislative session this summer. Perry's decision came after a controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision in a Connecticut case that upheld a city's authority to condemn private homes and then sell the property to commercial developers as part of an effort to increase jobs and expand the city's tax base.
Willacy officials say they only want access to the nearby island by water so that local residents, schoolchildren and winter tourists who don't own boats can visit the undeveloped beaches."
So why does the county want to access to this section of the island? Because the rest of the island is owned by the Federal Government as part of the South Padre National Seashore, and the county's plan has already been shot down by the Interior department.
"Earlier this year, officials with the Padre Island National Seashore, which owns the land on the north side of the Port Mansfield channel, rejected the county's request to unload ferry passengers on parkland.
The 1,500-acre island preserve is part of a 24,500-acre tract the Nature Conservancy purchased for $7.5 million from a Houston firm, after plans for a large-scale residential and marina development on the site failed. The conservation group sold, at below its cost, the majority of the island acreage to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to expand an existing federal wildlife refuge.
The proposed condemnation has angered environmental groups along the coast.
"They (Willacy County) shouldn't take over a private sanctuary," said Patricia Suter, chair of the Coastal Bend Chapter of the Sierra Club. ''They're trying to take too much."
This story should send a shudder down the spine of anyone who supports land trusts and the job they do. Or anyone who thinks that private property should remain private. This is wrong on so many levels, and I can only hope that Willacy County leaders will soon realize just how wrong this is.

Woodpecker Part Deux

2005-12-14T06:20:00.000-06:00

The hunt for the elusive Ivory Billed Woodpecker is underway again across the Mississippi River from here. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has sent out a press release announcing that the birdwatchers are back... and this year it's not going to be the secret mission it has been until last year's successful sighting.
With the arrival of volunteer searchers, the 2005-2006 Ivory-billed Woodpecker Research Project is now fully staffed and going full steam ahead. The current field season continues through April, 2006. The search is being led by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, The Nature Conservancy, and Audubon Arkansas, with the support and cooperation of other members the Ivory-billed Woodpecker Recovery Team.
"This is an exciting opportunity to better document the existence and learn more about this magnificent bird," said Sam D.
Hamilton, Southeast Regional Director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "Now that the leaves have fallen, conditions are much improved for seeing and hearing the birds. Finding birds is a critical part of the recovery process and we're hoping for some exciting news."
Twenty-two search team leaders, coordinators, supervisors, andfield technicians have been working in eastern Arkansas since November 1. More than 100 volunteers will now be joining the search, and will be deployed in groups of 14 for two week periods through the remainder of the field season. The goal is to find an ivory-bill roost hole or nesthole and get additional video documentation of the bird or birds-all in the hope of learning more about the species to bring the ivory-bill back from near-extinction.
"Since the ivory- bill's rediscovery, The Nature Conservancyhas acquired for protection some 18,500 acres of critical habitat andworked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to add 1,440 acres to the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge - where the bird was firstspotted," said Scott Simon, director of The Nature Conservancy's Arkansas chapter. "The more data gathered about the number and location of ivory bills living in Arkansas , the more we can do to protect this fragile habitat and make sure this incredible bird survives forgenerations to come. Because of the great cooperation of many agencies
and organizations focusing on habitat conservation, we have a chance to recover the ivory bill."
And according to the press release, the Big Woods of Eastern Arkansas isn't the only place that may be seeing flocks of Ivory Billed Birdwatchers this winter...
Searches in Arkansas are planned for White River National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), Cache River NWR, Dagmar Wildlife Management Area (WMA), Black Swamp WMA, Wattensaw WMA, and Benson Creek Natural Area. Other teams are starting to organize scouting trips to follow-up on Ivory-billed woodpecker sightings from across the southern United States
in the former range of the bird. This may involve work in South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana and Texas, but will depend on a review of what is believed to be the best habitat, along with credible recent sightings.
Searchers will use traditional tools, such as binoculars and digital cameras, as well as high-tech methods that include Autonomous Recording Units (ARUs), sophisticated sound-analysis software, time-lapse video
systems, and remote cameras. Human searchers will make their way through the bayous by canoe and on foot, looking for promising tree cavities. They will also be conducting transect searches with the aid of GPS units. At other times they will be sitting quietly in blinds, observing. Scouts will be looking for suitable ivory-bill habitat, assisted by NASA satellite photos that will help them focus on promising areas more quickly.
"The volunteers are vital to the search effort," says Dr. John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. "Without
them there's no way we could scour such a large area for ivory-bills. These folks are field biologists and avid birders-all of them giving up their time to be part of this once-in-a-lifetime recovery project."
So birders, that sounds like an open invitation to come on down and sit in a cold, wet swamp and test your wits against our most elusive neighbor.

Adding Pictures

2005-12-12T18:23:00.000-06:00

I'm just back from the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and armed with my (and my wife's) early Christmas gift... I will attempt to begin the next revolution in Nature Noted world history..... pictures! Yes I know I'm behind the rest of the world on this technology stuff... but a step at a time.
The pictures here are various shots of what used to be downtown Bay St. Louis. The destroyed buildings are all along Beach road... at least what used to be Beach road.

The final shot is of one of the encouraging signs of life... the railroad bridge across the Bay of St. Louis is almost ready for trains. If only the transportation department in charge of fixing the highway bridge moved with as much urgency as CSX.

The Oaks of Memory

2005-12-08T20:26:00.000-06:00

The human toll of Hurricane Katrina has been well documented.... althought I fear that most Americans have moved on and aren't aware of just how slowly the reconstruction is taking. But there are glimmers of hope. One is the effort to save one of the coast's most treasured landmarks... the live oak. The Live Oak Rescue Mission is trying to save the beauties.
The Live Oak Rescue Mission is a joint venture between the Land Trust for Mississippi Coastal Plain, The Home Depot Foundation and many other state and federal agencies.
The goal is to nurture the centuries-old trees back to health by replacing the soil Katrina took away and applying a hefty dose of water, mulch and care.
"You'll find many people's memories of life here are tied into these trees," Land Trust Executive Director Judy Steckler said. "They have a huge emotional value for people in this community."
Volunteers began site restoration Nov. 29 along Beach Boulevard in Pascagoula, and have since restored more than 300 trees from Pascagoula to Ocean Springs.
Steckler says an estimated 200 more Live oaks still need restoration across the Coast. The entire project is scheduled for completion within two weeks.
The Home Depot Foundation is funding the majority of the project in cooperation with Land Trust and the U.S. Forest Service. The foundation has already donated more than $2 million for recovery efforts, on top of the $10 million The Home Depot has donated.
The Live Oaks are truly landmarks for the coast, and symbols of stability which are sorely needed now.
After my mom died, my cousins pitched in to buy the naming rights for her on one of the beautiful oaks on the property of the Episcopal church in Bay St. Louis. I have a picture of my daughter standing next to the tree, with the name of the grandmother she never met above her. The little tag on the tree is gone now, the church is washed away as well. All that is left is the slab and the oaks. Among them, mom's tree. Like the memories, the oaks live on.

Skywalk to Nowhere

2005-12-03T17:00:00.000-06:00

Have you heard about the Grand Canyon Skywalk? It's a project by the Hualapai Nation of Arizona to create a new tourist destination at the Grand Canyon. Nature Noted reader Peggy Hall is not impressed. And you probably won't be either after you read about Peggy's experience checking out Grand Canyon West. Thanks for sharing, Peggy.

Money Hanging from Trees

2005-11-29T10:24:00.000-06:00

Psst. Want a hot tip. Buy trees... it's the next hot thing..... Or so says The Sophisticated Investor in Marketwatch.
How so? The evolving market of "carbon trading"
Carbon trading is going to be a $23 billion marketplace in just five years, according to some estimates. That's up from a mere $450 million today.
Trees store carbon dioxide, which offsets the carbon emissions that lead to global warming. The international treaty on climate change, the Kyoto Protocol, invented a system that provides economic incentives for business and countries to reduce their carbon emissions by buying carbon credits as an offset. Those credits are quickly becoming akin to futures contracts......
....CarbonCredEx.com, a "venue for the exchange of carbon credits between emitters, investors and growers" offers land and forests for sale as credit agents on its site. Carbon credit funds are being set up around the globe to amass forests as carbon emission offsets. The World Bank even established its own fund with public and private participants. It was just closed to new investors after being oversubscribed.
There are other ways, such as investments in renewable energy projects in developing nations, to gain carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol. But carbon storage is the current focus of credit transfer. This is because demand for logging remains strong and carbon emissions remain rampant.
Critics of the carbon-credit transfer system say it's too bureaucratic and complicated. They also complain it allows rich nations to effectively buy their way out of reducing harmful emissions.
The first part is true, hence the investment opportunity to capitalize on the market newness and inefficiency. The second part is nonsense. Emissions aren't geocentric; saving a tree in Patagonia offsets greenhouse gas in Pomona; we have a common roof. The rich paying their way out still reduces carbon effects.
That's why rewarding land conservation may sound like a radical approach to garnering a foothold in the burgeoning carbon-credit trading market. But it isn't. It's a trading incentive.
That said, go buy a tree. You'll be getting in on the ground floor of the world's next big investment opportunity
Is this an income source for land trusts? If it's not now, it appears that it could soon be. For more info, check out the glossary at CarbonCredEx. I have no idea how much money we're talking here, but I assume the more trees and wetlands you have, the more it could be worth.

Passing of a Land Preserver

2005-11-27T18:25:00.000-06:00

Richard Brewer (on the Landtrust Listserv) points out the passing of a Land Trust Pioneer. In the New York Times obituary the headline reads "Kingsbury Browne, Land Preserver, Dies at 82. Nice way to be remembered, isn't it?
Browne's biggest legacy may be the Land Trust Alliance, says the obituary...
Land trusts generally buy land or work out voluntary agreements with private owners that limit future development; typically they focus on farmland, forests, stretches of coastline and scenic vistas.
Mr. Browne's dedication to them underpinned the Land Trust Alliance, a national umbrella group for what had been a scattershot land-use movement. Since he helped form it in 1982, the alliance has given legal and institutional support, practical know-how and a collective voice to more than 1,500 land trusts around the country.
Mr. Browne joined the issue while counseling environmental groups and public agencies on tax matters. Then, on a sabbatical from his firm, Hill & Barlow, in 1980, he visited land trusts scattered around the country under the aegis of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, Mass., and Harvard Law School.
The experience showed him that those isolated efforts - unlike the big established ones, like the Nature Conservancy - needed a national association and clearinghouse. He called a meeting in Cambridge to organize a Land Trust Exchange, soon renamed the Land Trust Alliance.
One of Mr. Browne's noted contributions was to adapt and apply to conservation the common-law concept of easement, in which a property owner may cede the right of way on the land for a road or transmission line. As developed by Mr. Browne, easements also permitted nonprofit preservation trusts to gain the owner's consent to keep a property undeveloped or maintain it as a forest or farmland, with the owner gaining a tax advantage in return.
Mr. Browne served as general counsel to the alliance for years. He was editor and chairman of its Conservation Tax Program and sat on the advisory council of the Trust for Public Land, a national conservation group. He retired as a partner in Hill & Barlow in 1992, when he became of counsel to the firm.
Preserver of Land, Father of the Conservation Easement... those are legacies to make anyone proud.

Thanksgiving, 2005

2005-11-24T11:23:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. This has been one of those trying years, but despite the bad there has been so much more to be thankful for. Happy wishes to you and yours.
-Pat, Robin and Abigail

Family addendum--
To get an idea of the trying time, check out MSNBC.Com. That's my Aunt Betty and Uncle Pete Benevenutti, as the work crews tear down half of their house. That house has many of my fondest holiday memories. As kids we always ended up in "the Bay" for either Thanksgiving or Christmas or both. I still remember one Thanksgiving in the early '70's. There are 8 Benvenuttis and assorted Benvenutti friends, most of them older (I was still sitting at the little kids table). Everyone is in full late '60's hair... long and shaggy. One of the cousins came upon this guy from South America who was bicycling through the U.S. and invites him to dinner. If you read the MSNBC story, you'll see the back room that's still standing. That's where we had the dinner. Room filled with loud talking people. It was a riot (a very fun one.) I still remember the family portrait from that year. A bunch of wild haired, hippie looking people all having a great time. And one wild haired, hippie looking guy from South America, wondering if this was what all of America looked like on Thanksgiving. What a great house.

The (Re)Wild Mississippi

2005-11-20T19:59:00.000-06:00

Remember the Mississippi River Flood around St. Louis in 1993? The middle Mississippi kept rising and rising, right through towns that never thought it could get that high. I helped fill sandbags that were supposed to help protect downtown Alton, Illinois for two days (it was something of a TV news stunt... the old "we care so much we're sending volunteers to sandbag"), and all I remember is that despite millions of sandbags, the river still rose over the top and flooded the town.
I bring up this flashback because other people also remember the flood of '93, but they're still doing something about it. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that.....
Since the flood of 1993, a nonprofit group has quietly assembled 25,000 acres of land around the Mississippi in an attempt to return some of the wild functions to the river. The object isn't the fickle waterway that Twain observed but one repopulated with wetlands, advocates say.
"It's called 'wilding' the river," said Tim Richardson, Washington liaison for the American Land Conservancy, which is the nonprofit organization that has established the Mississippi River Conservation Partnership. Most of the land, including a 3,200-acre chunk dedicated last month, has been assembled in the last five years by the California-based group.
The American Land Conservancy has figured out how to pull off a big project like this without making many waves.....
The project's biggest advantage politically, according to backers, is that it cuts down on flood insurance cashed in by farmers growing crops in flood-prone regions.
"What we do makes very good economic sense," said Jenny Frazier, vice president of the American Land Conservancy. The cost savings over the long term may be why the endeavor has avoided controversy associated with some other conservation efforts. About 95 percent of the property is considered public land, and much of that can be hunted or fished with the proper approvals.
"This project should serve as a model for the rest of the nation," said Rep. Jerry Costello, a Democrat from Belleville who represents Southern Illinois and is one of the project's strongest backers. "Flood plain wetlands restoration is good for the environment while providing more land for public use."
In the Mississippi region, an added ecological benefit to reducing farming near the river is the diminishing of fertilizer runoff into the Mississippi.
"The efforts are averting an endangered species crisis along the river," Richardson said. Species at risk include pallid sturgeon and birds such as the piping plover and the least tern..........
One of the criticisms I get is that I'm putting farmers out of business," said Frazier, who said she hunted and fished on her property in Bollinger County, Mo. "That's completely inaccurate. We find landowners who want to quit farming in the flood plain.
It's a lot better than filling sandbags, I can attest.

1491

2005-11-18T18:57:00.000-06:00

I have once again been remiss in my blogging. Partially to blame is the November ratings book (going pretty well, thank you for asking) and a general lack of things grabbing my attention. But I have also been engrossed in "1491" by Charles C. Mann. It is a fascinating look at the latest scholarship on what the Americas looked like in the time before Columbus arrived. I highly recommend it. The gist is that we're realizing that the picture of what North and South America looked liked before Columbus that we learned in high school is completely wrong. These were not mostly empty continents asserts Mann, they were actually more populous than Europe and Asia. It was only the introduction of "Western Germs" that rapidly made them empty. Mann writes a paragraph that struck me, and I think should cause everyone interested in the envrionment to think about, too.
In talking about the disputes over painting the historical picture, Mann writes...
"Disputes also arise because the new theories have implications for today's ecological battles. Much of the environmental movement is animated, consciously or not, by what geographer William Denevan calls "the pristine myth" - the belief that the Americas in 1491 were an almost untouched, even Edenic land, "untrammeled by man," in the words of the Wilderness Act of 1964, a U.S. law that is one of the founding documents of the global environmental movement. To green activists, as the University of Wisconsin historian William Cronon has written, restoring this long-ago, putatively natural state is a task that society is morally bound to undertake. Yet if the new view is correct and the work of humakind was pervasive, where does that leave efforts to restore nature?"
Where indeed?
I thought about this when Jon Christensen linked to an article in Orion magazine about the push by some of the big environmental organizations to force native people off threatened land. The sense that land untouched by man is pure and natural becomes more historically untrue the more we learn. People are part of the landscape. We are part of the ecosystem. The trick is preserving the balance between our needs and lives and the needs and life of the world around us. The edenic myth is just that, a myth. The job of environmentalists is to keep people alive and well in the healthy environment.

Forbes Land Plans

2005-11-12T19:38:00.000-06:00

For years I've seen ads in magazines (usually Forbes publications) offering to sell a chunk of the Forbes Family ranch near Ft. Garland, Colorado. Parts of the ranch are still for sale, but now the properities come complete with a conservation easement. Malcom Forbe's children are selling access to an undeveloped portion of the Trinchera Ranch and agreed to put a conservation easement on the property.
His children plan to raise US$70 million ($101.8 million) by selling access to the ranch so capitalists can commune with black bears, coyotes and mountain lions.
The Forbes siblings have given up their right to develop about half the ranch's 69,363 hectares near Fort Garland, Colorado, qualifying for conservation-land tax breaks.
Documents filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission show they have also created a company, Forbes Trinchera Ranch, to sell stakes granting ranch access.
The easement lets multi-millionaires build 930 square-metre mansions that can serve as base camps for hunting elk and bighorn sheep. The family, while managing an estimated US$1 billion inheritance, join western landowners in using conservation easements to cut taxes as land values soar.
"They are using the tax code and the land for all the benefit they can get," says local real estate agent Bruce Steffens, of Monte Vista, Colorado. "That is just smart."
Wonder if the price of those mansions drops along with the value of the easements?

Land Rush in the Woods

2005-11-05T08:53:00.000-06:00

A change in corporate fortunes is creating some real fortunes from an unlikely place.... the deep, dark woods. In the last year some of the big land trusts, like the The Nature Conservancy have been striking deals with state governments and timber companies to buy up easements on property held by Big Timber. But despite the size of the deals, they're pretty small compared to the vast areas the companies own. As corporate profits get squeezed, either by a drop in demand for paper products, or by cheaper timber from outside the country, the timber companies are finding the real estate business can be much more lucrative than harvesting the timber. An article orginally published in the Wall Street Journal details how money managers are rushing into the woods in search of profits.
"The result is an enormous land transfer now under way. The paper companies long were the nation's largest private owners of large tracts of standing timber. "For 100 years, the industrial users owned this land. A 1980 map of landowners in Maine would be almost the same as the 1900 map," says William Ginn, an official of the Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit environmental group.
Now the national map changes almost monthly. It's a phenomenon that has financial ramifications as well as environmental ones, such as the possibility that financial investors who get in a bind might over-log or overdevelop the land.
Today, nearly $30 billion of American forest land is in the hands of financial investors, according to Hancock Timber Resource Group, a large timberland investment manager. That's six times what such investors' timberland holdings were in 1994, Hancock Timber estimates. And these investors have poured billions of dollars more into forests abroad.
In one notable sale, an investment partnership run by Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co., a Boston money-management firm, last year bought more than 5 percent of the land in the state of Maine. Grantham Mayo oversees 2.6 million acres of timber investments world-wide.
Harvard University, meanwhile, earmarks 10 percent of its nearly $26 billion endowment for timber, a remarkable proportion for such a small and unconventional asset class as this. Although Harvard recently sold most of its U.S. forest holdings -- to another financial investor -- the university is looking for new land to buy. Yale also invests in forests, as do various pension funds, insurance companies and charitable trusts. John Malone, chief executive of Liberty Media Corp., owns 75,000 woodland acres with his wife.
The money pouring into timber reflects a global hunt for higher returns as investment cash floods the world from many sources: pension funds, central banks, hedge funds, oil-rich nations and corporations with surplus cash on their balance sheets. This has created a surge in demand for "hard assets" like real estate, timber and commodities -- in part because cash flooding into bonds has driven down returns on them.
Industry insiders say $10 billion more U.S. timberland will come to market over the next year or two, and that investors are lined up to buy it. The result of this fervor is that prices have climbed, in some cases doubling in five years, despite weakness in prices of the lumber the forests produce.
The rush is even more pronounced in certain "hot areas" that are in driving distance of major metropolitan areas. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has just finished an excellent series on the rush in the North Woods of Minnesota around Lake Superior. In this case, the buyers aren't money managers, but people who want a second home in the woods.
On Lake Vermilion, for example, undeveloped lakeshore sells for $1,000 to $2,000 a foot. That means an average-sized lot could cost anywhere from $100,000 to $250,000. Away from the lake, 5 wooded acres go for $25,000 to $50,000.
Interestingly, one of the most important amenities is easy access to civilization. Though more and more buyers are willing to drive several hours to get to the wilderness, they still want access to some luxuries they left behind - restaurants and places to shop.
"Everyone likes to go up north and feel like they're up north, but they don't want to be too far up north," Peterson said. "They want to be able to go get a steak and a beer and all the nostalgia that goes with it."
Accessibility to roads and electricity can be even more important to an investor's bottom line. Charlie Chernak, an Ely real estate broker and a part-time land speculator, said that investors typically want to double their money after paying expenses related to platting the parcels and installing the infrastructure that's required to make it usable.
Property that was once considered too remote is now desirable (although I wonder how desirable if gasoline prices go back up). The big concern from environmentalists is that property that was mostly left intact (in between periods of ripping the heck out of it to harvest the trees) is going to be chopped up into smaller tracts that won't support the wildlife that depends upon it. Call it the suburbanization of the woods.
A number of the big land trusts in Minnesota have pooled resources to create a fund for conservation easements, recognizing that people are going to buy the land anyway.... so there might as well be an effort to keep it as intact as possible.
One such solution is the Minnesota Forest Legacy Partnership. The Partnership includes the Blandin Foundation, the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce, Minnesota Forest Industries Inc., the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the Minnesota Forest Resources Council, the Nature Conservancy, the Conservation Fund, and the Trust for Public Land.
The partnership has established a $6 million fund -- part of a planned three-year, $26 million public/private investment in these forests -- that will help ensure sustainable forestry, protect wildlife habitat and guarantee public access in the forests around Itasca County.
The fund will support the purchase of conservation easements on up to 75,000 acres of private industrial forestland in the Itasca County region. The conservation easements, once purchased from willing sellers, will be held by the state Department of Natural Resources..........
The economic vitality and quality of life of northern Minnesota communities depends on forest industries. The timber industry is the fourth-largest manufacturer in the state, creating employment in rural areas that produces more than $2 billion in wages. Moreover, the Northwoods of Itasca County is a prime destination for Upper Midwest tourism and outdoor recreation, pumping more than $100 million into the local economy and affecting some 2,700 jobs.
The continuing fragmentation of forests is one of the most pressing threats to wildlife and also greatly compromises timber management and harvesting. By protecting large blocks of forestland, we can preserve the vital connection between Minnesota's healthy forest-based industries, healthy forest ecosystems and healthy forest. By protecting our forests, we protect our way of life. Let's not miss this opportunity to pass on to our children the same Northwoods heritage we have grown to cherish.
I do find it a bit ironic that Big Timber ownership of woodlands is beginning to look more and more like "the good old days", but as Einstein pointed out, everything's relative. I applaud the effort by the trusts to use conservation easements to keep the properties intact. Because as we've seen too often, any kind of boom can too quickly turn into a bust. Saving as much as we can now, can limit the damage later.

Tennessee State Land Trust

2005-11-01T19:59:00.000-06:00

Tennessee is getting into the land trust business. The Governor's office sent out this press release earlier today, marking the next big step in the state's plan to form a trust....

Governor Phil Bredesen today announced the appointment of the members of the Tennessee Heritage Conservation Trust Fund Board, a group of 11 Tennesseans who will help lead his land preservation and protection initiative.
Bredesen in September 2005 signed the Tennessee Heritage Conservation Trust Fund Act, which promotes public-private partnerships as a means for conserving the state’s natural spaces. The legislation establishes a board of trustees to raise funds and accept donations for land conservation through a 501(c)(3), as well as manage a $10 million budget approved earlier this spring by the Tennessee General Assembly.
“It’s personally important to me to preserve land for the future of our state and the people of Tennessee. Once it’s gone, we can never go back to the wild spaces that are so much a part of Tennessee’s landscape,” Bredesen said. “I am grateful to these Tennesseans for their willingness to serve our state. Their leadership will prove vital in our efforts to preserve and protect the natural spaces we cherish in Tennessee.”
The board’s members represent all regions of the state and will serve staggered four-year terms:
Jeannine Alday
Jeannine Alday has served Hamilton County for more than 20 years in her current position as chief of staff to county mayor Claude Ramsey and as the county’s former Human Services Administrator. Alday is a member of the Tennessee Riverpark Planning and Design Committee, the Tennessee Recreation and Parks Association, the Trust for Public Land Advisory Committee and the National Recreation and Parks Asspciation.
William “Buck” Clark
William Clark is a principal in the Clark and Clark real estate development firm of Shelby County. He is a board member emeritus of the Tennessee chapter of the Nature Conservancy and has worked extensively to help preserve the Wolf River natural area in West Tennessee.
Pete Claussen
Pete Claussen is the founder and chairman of Gulf & Ohio Railways, a shortline railroad operations company. Claussen also founded the Seven Islands Foundation, which helped develop a 410-acre wildlife refuge in south Knoxville. He chairs the Smithsonian National Museum of American History’s board of directors and is a member of the Smithsonian Institution National Board of Directors. He also serves on boards and committees with the Knoxville Public Building Authority, the National Transportation Research Center and the Knoxville Zoo.
Bruce Dobie
Bruce Dobie, former editor and publisher of the Nashville Scene newspaper, helped found the Land Trust for Tennessee and leads the group’s South Cumberland and Sequatchie Valley conservation initiative.
Darrell Freeman
Darrell Freeman is president and CEO of Zycron, Inc., a technology company. He is the incoming chairman of the Nashville Chamber of Commerce and chairs the boards of Stone Crest Medical Center and 100 Black Men of Middle Tennessee. His past service includes the Boy Scouts of America and the Federal Reserve Advisory Board.
J. Andrew Goddard
Drew Goddard leads the environmental practice of Nashville law firm Bass, Berry and Sims. Goddard has practiced environmental law for 20 years and has served as chair of the Tennessee Bar Association’s environmental section. In 2004 and 2005, Business Tennessee voted Goddard as one of the state’s best environmental lawyers.
Mary H. Johnson
Mary Johnson is vice president of Interstate Realty and Development in Bristol and serves as the vice chair of the Tennessee Conservation Commission. She also serves on the board of directors for Friends of the Smokies, the Tennessee chapter of the Nature Conservancy, the Natural Areas Advisory Board and the North Carolina Arboretum Board.
Cheryl W. Patterson
Cheryl Patterson is an attorney with the Memphis law firm of Wyatt, Tarrant and Combs. She serves on the board of directors for the Children’s Museum of Memphis, Bridges, Inc. and the Depot Redevelopment Corporation of Memphis and Shelby County. Patterson is a member of the Memphis, Tennessee, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and American Bar Associations.
John W. Rose
John Rose owns a working family farm that has operated in Smith and DeKalb counties since 1874. He is president of Smith Fork Ventures, Inc., an investment firm, and served under the Sundquist Administration as Tennessee’s Commissioner of Agriculture. Rose is vice chair of the Tennessee Future Farmers of America Foundation, Inc., and vice chair-elect of the Tennessee Tech Foundation’s board of directors.
Becky Wilson
Becky Wilson is a former assistant U.S. Attorney for the state’s Western District and the founder of Bridge Builders, a youth leadership program. Wilson serves as a board of trust member for Vanderbilt University, a board of governors member for the Memphis Community Foundation and as director for the Memphis Zoological Society.
Earl Worsham
Earl Worsham is chairman of the Worsham Group and Worsham Watkins International, a hotel and real estate development company. He is the former chairman of International Trout Unlimited and a board member of the Atlantic Salmon Federation. Worsham owns more than 3,000 adjacent to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, where he is active in conservation efforts.

PERC moves

2005-10-31T19:47:00.000-06:00

Well, at least Dominic's Parker study on conservation easments has moved. Apparently PERC has moved some things on its site around. To read the paper, try http://perc.org/pdf/ps34.pdf. I confess I still haven't gotten too far into it, but here's the synopsis provided by the National Center for Policy Analysis.

Public funding mechanisms that encourage full accountability and transparency while also providing trusts with flexibility to use their discretion have the best potential, says Parker. This could be done by:
-Increasing oversight of the easement appraisal process; the nonprofit Land Trust Alliance has proposed an accreditation system that would certify land trusts who want to receive donated conservation easements and certified land trusts would use accredited appraisers.
-Replace federal tax breaks with a competitive grant program that requires trusts to raise matching funds from private sources and local government; ideally, 75 percent or more of the total cost of the conservation easement would be paid by the recipient organization.

PERC's take on Conservation Easements

2005-10-28T07:08:00.000-05:00

PERC has released its comprehensive look at the use of Conservation Easements by Land Trusts. The study by Dominic Parker is available as a free download. I don't have enough time before work this morning to give you a synopsis, but hope to get into it later. Thanks to the eagle-eyed Mr. Bryce for the tip.

A fine, fine year

2005-10-27T07:05:00.000-05:00

I think I could have scripted a slightly better ending to the Astro's first ever World Series... but even with the sweep it was still a magical year. On the upside, I should get some more sleep over the next few days.... Bring back day games!

Wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hil

2005-10-25T20:35:00.000-05:00

There have been a few tidbits put out about the Land Trust Rally.... and the ones I have seen have been very positive. A letter posted on the landtrust listserv about the discussion with the IRS commissioner and staffers. The upshot... the IRS is no longer "out to get" trusts, and understands that conservation easements are not just tax scams. It appears the intensive education efforts by both trusts AND the IRS have paid off. Both sides now understand what the other is trying to do, and both are now working towards a common goal. That's a big positive.
Another good insight comes from Dan Barringer over at Crow's Nest Preserve for his notes on the Rally. Particular thanks for the link to the keynote address by William Cronan, who is the Frederick Jackson Turner
& Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Cronan also focuses on the idea of working toward a common goal, Cronan talks about the idea that land trusts protect more than just the wild places of the world..
"But today I want to argue that the natural places we protect need also to be described and understood as cultural landscapes. In the United States , we typically arrange these along a continuum as follows:
City > Suburb > Working Landscapes > Wilderness
One of the reasons I'm proud to be on the board of the Trust for Public Land is TPL's great insight, which it embodies as well as any organization I know, that if we fail to protect nature in all of these cultural landscapes, we will fail to protect nature in any of them. TPL has always had the wisdom to recognize that none of these is more important than any of the others. It seems to me that this insight is shared by the land trust movement in general, and expresses one of our most important core values.
Why do I say this? Because the protection of nature is a cultural project, not just a biological one.Whether we protect deep wilderness or an inner city community garden, from a human cultural point of view we are protecting a human symbol of nature. These symbols are crucial in reminding us of the nature that is all around of us, crucial in reconnecting us to the natural world, crucial in helping us raise children to care for the world that sustains us all.
And let's not forget: these cultural landscapes, from wilderness through working landscapes to the inner city, are equally crucial to sustaining the national political consensus that protecting land and environment is among our most vital commitments as a nation.
So what I want to offer you as we prepare to depart is that land trusts are in the business not just of conserving lands, not just of protecting ecosystems and ecological services, not just of preserving biodiversity...but of conserving the human values those lands embody.
These values are the reason why our society has created technical tools like conservation easements and special tax treatments for agricultural and undeveloped lands: we have declared a public commitment to the public good that is served by such tools.
Cronan quotes John Winthrop's Puritan idea of America as the "Citty upon a Hill" to argue what a community united in God and common purpose can achieve. And Cronan stresses that it is only by being united that we can achieve our common goal.
"Why is it important for all of us involved in land conservation to remember that the work we do is about affirming core American values?
I have many answers to this question, but today I will simply point to the troubling loss of bipartisanship that has come to characterize our national political life vis-à-vis conservation and environmental protection since the heady days of the 1970s when it seemed that everyone was eager to call themselves an "environmentalist." By some measures, the percentage of Americans who willingly attach that label to themselves has dropped below 20%, even though a very large majority of Americans still say that they strongly support environmental protection.
For most of the twentieth century, both of our national political parties, Democrats and Republicans alike, strongly supported conservation and environmental protection, albeit with different emphases and different policy strategies. Most of our greatest conservation achievements, from the founding of the national parks to the passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act to the flood of legislation that now provides most of our legal framework for environmental protection at the national level, was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.
We too often forget that most of our key federal statutes for environmental protection date from the Nixon Administration, and were passed with large majorities because of fierce competition between a Republican White House and a Democratic Congress over which was more committed to environmental protection.
That competition essentially came to an end in the 1980s, and the consequences have not been good for the environment, for our national politics, or for our core values as a nation.
The history of these changes is far too complicated for me to narrate today, but I can easily summarize one obvious cause.
The late twentieth century saw a conservative reaction against the state in defense of American ideas of liberty.
It is vital to remember that this American suspicion of state power goes back to the Revolution itself, which was anti-statist and libertarian in many important ways. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights both reflect deep anxieties about the potential tyranny of state power.
The conservative reaction against environmentalism in 1980s arguably flowed from this source. It represented not a failure to love the land, but a fear that the environmental laws and regulations of the 1970s at least potentially represented a new form of state tyranny.
The collapse of bipartisan support for environmentalism (which to my mind is among the greatest losses to our national politics in the past quarter century) was primarily a reaction not against nature, not against the environment, not against the American land, but against centralized government power and its feared abuse.
I do not intend to take a position today regarding the conservative reaction against state power as expressed in environmental law, nor do I want to criticize the Republican Party for moving away from its longstanding tradition of environmental protection.
Instead, I want to express regret that the two parties no longer compete nearly as much as they once did over their commitment to environmental protection.
We all suffer from this change in our politics.
In my view, it is little short of a national disaster for the environment to look as if it is somehow a one-party issue.
It is also very far indeed from being an accurate reflection of core American values: all Americans love their land.
We do love our land, and we all want a bright future. Working together is the only way to get there.

It is a bad, bad virus

2005-10-22T08:33:00.000-05:00

I've been distracted here at Nature Noted in recent weeks. First, baseball is taking up much more of my time than normal (Go Astros) but I've also been morbidly fascinated by the growing concern over Avian Flu. One of the wonderful things we're blessed with here in Memphis is the presence of St. Jude Children's Hospital. The main mission of the hospital is to treat childhood cancer. But it is also a top-flight research center, complete with Nobel Prize winners. It also happens that one of the top influenza experts in the world is here as well, Dr. Robert Webster. Earlier this week, Webster held a news conference here, that frankly, scared the bejesus out of me.
Webster has been studying the influenza virus for the past 30 years. He and his team at St. Jude have developed a vaccine against the H5N1 virus that can be used in birds, but so far, not in humans. Webster speaks in a slow, measured British accent, and says completely frightening things very matter of factly. Such as....

-Avian flu is coming. It's not a matter of if, but when.
-This strain of the virus has a 50% mortality rate.
-It will probably first show up in Alaska and then the West Coast, carried by wild ducks. And if does mutate to humans, it will be as near as your closest international airport.
-The United States is absolutely not prepared for this.
-Everyone should be prepared to stay inside, in a personal quarantine for as long as seven months.

Webster is watching the mutations in the virus, currently in Asia, with alarm...
"But I am very, very concerned it will achieve the last few mutations that will allow it to spread from human to human," Webster said. "This is the worst influenza virus I have ever encountered."
Webster, who has studied flu viruses for decades, also directs the World Health Organization's U.S. Collaborating Center, which focuses on the ecology of animal flu viruses.
Webster noted that unlike most flu viruses, this one kills the ducks that normally serve as its host. It also has killed tigers and cats that were fed chickens carrying the virus. And, while most flu viruses will give ferrets the sniffles, this virus spreads to their brains, causing paralysis and death.
"It is very scary. It is a bad, bad virus."
His advice on personal quarantine only underscores his concern. He says everyone should have enough supplies to stay inside for at least a month, possibly longer. He also advises getting a flu shot.
The flu shot will reduce someone's disease risk now and chances of sparking the next pandemic.
One pandemic scenario involves the bird flu virus picking up the genetic information it needs to spread easily in humans through the chance infection of someone who is also infected with a human flu virus.
Webster said getting a flu shot means "you have less chance to be the mixing vessel.
"All my staff have been vaccinated.
Since the news conference, my wife and I have talked about scenarios. It would be easy enough to pull our daughter out of school, and Robin's painting business can go on hold. But I'd still need to go to work. Do I quarantine myself in a different part of the house from the girls, stock up on masks and germ fighting soap, and hope for the best? Scary stuff.
When encountering the new and scary, the first think I do is read up on it.
I'm in the middle of the excellent The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John Barry. You'll learn not only about the deadly pandemic of 1918, but also how influenza jumps from animals to humans, why it can be so deadly or so mild, and how it mutates. You'll also learn about the history of modern american medicine and why Woodrow Wilson's way of waging war spread the 1918 strain around the world.
My advice... learn what you can, and be vigilant. If we're lucky, this one won't mutate, and this will be just another one of those scares like swine flu back in the '70's. But if it does come, you'll want to be as ready as you possibly can.

Astros in the World Series

2005-10-19T23:11:00.000-05:00

I'm usually an optimist by nature. Except when it comes to sports. When you grow up as a Houston Astros fan, you're used to seeing defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. When Albert Pujols hit the homerun the other night, I just knew it was all over. My wife had much more faith than I did tonight. She just knew they were going to win. I just knew I was in for another heartbreak. I love it when she's right.

Rally side trip

2005-10-15T08:17:00.000-05:00

Dan Barringer is in Madison for the LTA rally, but he is taking a sidetrip to visit one of the shrines of the land trust movement, Aldo Leopold's Wisconsin farm that was the setting for "A Sand County Almanac". It's a nice trip.

Land Trust or Tour Guide?

2005-10-12T20:22:00.000-05:00

Is it education or influence peddling? Legitimate lobbying or buying a vote? The Nature Conservancy and a Connecticut Congresswoman are catching flak for a trip to Ecuador. The Hartford Courant is reporting on the reaction to the news that TNC paid for a jaunt to the Galapagos Islands to check out the Conservancy's work there. So what's the big deal?
The Nature Conservancy, which gets millions of dollars in federal money to help fund its conservation projects, spent $17,900 to send Rep. Nancy L. Johnson and her husband to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands to observe its work.
The nonprofit group spent $4,400 on lodging, $1,200 for meals and $12,300 in transportation expenses for the couple's trip, which began May 28 and ended June 5.
Johnson said the excursion was highly productive and typical of others she has taken throughout her 22-year House career. "I pick knowledge-based trips. I ask myself whether this is a subject I need to know about," she said, "and whether I'll be a better congressman if I know more........
Johnson's trip also sparked criticism from Washington watchdogs. William Allison, editor-at-large at Washington's Center for Public Integrity, which studies congressional travel, had questions about the Nature Conservancy's sponsorship.
He asked why an agency that relies on money from the U.S. Agency for International Development, or AID, would take Johnson and three other House members on such a trip.
"I know money is fungible, but the Nature Conservancy gets federal money, so the question is whether taxpayer money is funneled through them for lobbying," Allison said.
Jim Petterson, Nature Conservancy spokesman, said no government funds are used for the trips. "There's a very bright line we don't cross," he said.
The Nature Conservancy, which gets about $42 million in federal government grants per year, spent a total of $64,227 on the trips of the members - Johnson and Reps. John M. Spratt, D-S.C., Sam Johnson, R-Texas, and Ed Pastor, D-Ariz., - and their spouses.
Asked why Johnson's husband, Ted, came along at Nature Conservancy expense, Petterson said that the trip came during a 10-day Memorial Day congressional recess.
"In order to get folks to see such far-flung places that matter so much in terms of conservation, you need to give them time to spend time with their families," he said.
Aw, that's sweet. The Nature Conservancy, working to keep Congressional Families together. Ok, that's a little harsh. Actually Johnson did get to see what TNC is doing in Ecuador.
Johnson and her companions flew to Quito, the capital of Ecuador, and from there went to the Condor Bioreserve project outside the city. The 5.4-million-acre site, home to the endangered Andean condor, spectacled bear and mountain tapir, is the source of much of Quito's drinking water, and efforts are underway to protect its parklands.
The Nature Conservancy's Parks in Peril program helps the project and gets between $5 million and $7 million in AID funds per year. The program's funding authority will expire in the next fiscal year.
Johnson said she found that the Nature Conservancy brings together local people in a way the U.S. government cannot. "They can develop relationships with indigenous people," the congresswoman said, "and they use employees who are Ecuadorian, people deeply knowledgeable about preservation and conservation."
There's no doubt TNC is a major enterprise, and one that relies on tax dollars to fund its big budget projects. And we all know the way Washington works. So, I guess no one should be surprised that big players like TNC play the game. Still, it's sad that the game has to be played at all.

RALLY TIME
The Land Trust Alliance begins its annual Rally in Madison, WI this weekend. I can't make it up, but I'll be interested to hear how it goes. Next year the Rally is in Nashville, so hopefully I can make it over. If you have stories, please share!

Supreme Court Wades In

2005-10-11T10:31:00.000-05:00

The Associated Press is reporting the Supreme Court has agreed to consider restricting the government's ability to regulate wetlands.

In one of three cases that will be argued at the court next year, a Michigan man, John A. Rapanos, was convicted of violating the Clean Water Act for filling his wetlands with sand to make the land ready for development. He also lost a civil suit, which is at issue in his appeal.
In a second case, justices will decide if the Army Corps of Engineers had the authority to restrict the development of a condominium in MacComb County, Mich. The government contends the work could pollute Lake St. Clair, which connects Lake Huron and Lake Erie.
Justices also agreed to hear a third case involving the same law, the 1972 Clean Water Act. It was filed by the owner of hydroelectric dam projects in Maine which provide electricity for the company's paper mill. Lawyers for S.D. Warren Co. argue that the company should not be required to get permits for some of its
operations.
The cases are Rapanos v. United States, 04-1034, Carabell v. Army Corps of Engineers, 04-1384, and S.D. Warren Co. v. ME Board of Environmental Protection, 04-1527.
This will be the first big environmental test of the Roberts' court.

Astros Win!

2005-10-09T19:00:00.000-05:00

Forgive the aside, but I'm still in shock. I've been a Houston Astros' fan since I was nine. I went to games in the dome, even the last game. My wife and I even had season tickets at Enron (yes you can boo) field. Our seats were in the outfield Crawford boxes, about five rows from where Chris Burke's homerun in the 18th inning landed today. I still can not believe they actually won. From the Phillies in '80, to the Mets in '86, to a series of Braves' teams, the Astros have always managed to break my heart. They probably still will. But today.... oh, my. What a game!

Signs of Hope

2005-10-08T07:42:00.000-05:00

With all the bad news recently, I thought it might be nice to highlight a couple of positive developments. First, let's travel to an unlikely place for a nature blog.... The Vatican. While fights over homosexuality and celibacy are getting the headlines, a gathering of the world's Roman Catholic bishops is also looking closely at how respect for the environment is integral to being a Catholic. According to John Allen in the National Catholic Reporter, bishops from the developing world are pushing for linking the Eucharist with ecology.
“Climactic change presents a serious threat to world peace. It is an authentic ‘sign of the times’ that demands of us an ‘ecological conversion,’” said Archbishop Pedro Ricardo Barreto Jimeno of Huancayo, Peru, on Oct. 4.
“The church has a huge responsibility in this spiritual field,” said Barreto Jimeno, a Jesuit.
“As ‘fruit of the earth’, the bread and the wine represent the creation which is entrusted to us by our Creator,” Barreto Jimeno said. “For that reason the Eucharist has a direct relationship with the life and hope of humanity and must be a constant concern for the church and a sign of Eucharistic authenticity.”
“[In] the Archdiocese of Huancayo, the air, the ground and the basin of the river Mantaro are seriously affected by contamination,” he said. “The Eucharist commits us to working so that the bread and wine be fruit of ‘a fertile, pure and uncontaminated land.’”
Bishop Gabriel Peñate Rodríguez, Apostolic Vicar of Izabal in Guatemala, made much the same argument in his Oct. 5 intervention.
“Guatemala is a country menaced by mineral exploitation,” Peñate Rodríguez said.
“Many licenses have been granted in this field to companies from developed countries who do not guarantee the care of the environment, and show no respect for the rights of the indigenous communities; and that are not fair in the distribution of profits, from which they leave hardly one per cent in form of royalties.”
Using much the same language as his fellow Latin American Barreto Jimeno, Peñate Rodríguez issued a plea: “We also hope that the bread that is converted in the body of the Lord and the wine which is converted into his blood may be fruit of a fertile, pure and uncontaminated land,” he said.
For those of you a little fuzzy on the meaning of Eucharist in the Catholic sense, this is a big deal. Catholics (as you might guess, I'm one) believe that bread and wine becomes literally the body and blood of Christ during the Consecration of the Mass. (known as Transubstantiation.) It's a central part of being a Catholic. So linking care for the environment to the Eucharist means that Church leaders understand the seriousness of the challenge ahead of us.
By the way, I realize that more than a few environmentalists (maybe most) don't consider themselves to be religious. Many people reading this might think the previous paragraph is just so much mumbo jumbo. That's fine. Just because I believe in it doesn't mean you have to, too. But the import is this. In recent months, there has been much discussion about broadening the base of active environmentalists. Now leaders of the world's largest religious denomination have announced they want to join the fight. Just a guess, but I'd say this is a pretty good opportunity to find common ground with a whole bunch of folks.
From the Religious to the Secular
And there's been an interesting back and forth recently over at DailyKos with Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer. Again, for the uninitiated, Daily Kos is an influential Democratic blog, one that Dave Roberts over at Gristmill has lamented doesn't pay enough attention to environmental matters. Gov. Schweitzer recently proposed that making synthetic fuels from coal could be an answer to the country's energy future. One Daily Kos blogger took issue with the plan, saying that the Governor was understating the environmental cost of the conversion.
Now, Schweitzer, in what is becoming a very smart political tactic, is talking back directly to the bloggers with a strong, direct defense of his plan. It's worth reading, and the proposal is pretty interesting.
Okay, there you have it. Where else are you going to learn about the ins and outs of both the Eucharist and synthetic fuel all in one place?!

The Indian Land Trust

2005-10-03T20:37:00.000-05:00

Something interesting is going on with the Oneida Indian Nation and a big chunk of land in New York State. I don't fully understand all the ins and outs (but that's never stopped me before), so if someone else is more informed on this, please chime in. According to an article in the Oneida (NY) Dispatch the Oneida tribe has applied to the Department of the Interior for permission to place 17,000 acres of tribal owned land into a land trust. The tribe's application means the Federal Government is now giving local officials 30 days for their comments on the deal. The local folks apparently are none too pleased, because that would take the land off the local tax rolls.
Nation officials issued a statement saying they are following the direction of the United States Supreme Court's decision in the Oneida Indian Nation of the State of New York vs. the City of Sherrill case earlier this year, which advised them to apply to put their land into trust.
"The Nation is pleased the process is moving forward because it will resolve a number of issues in dispute with the counties and the State," the statement read.
(Madison County Board of Supervisors Chairman Rocco ) DiVeronica said he was surprised at how fast the Nation applied for the trust, because he received indications that it would be a much slower process. He added that he also wants to know why the acreage is so large on the application
"The question would be: Do they need all that land for 600 to 700 Native Americans to support their tribe?" DiVeronica said.
So what's so interesting about this? As I read it, the Oneida tribe used to live in this part of New York State (Hence the name of the town and the paper.) But as with most Indian tribes, they were forced out of their traditional lands into smaller and smaller pieces of land farther and farther west. Those who left signed papers giving up their claims to their land. So the tribe split into a community in Canada, one in Wisconsin, and one in New York. But then, one day, Indian tribal gaming arrived. And so did lots and lots of money. Now the Oneidas are trying to buy up the traditional lands they left behind in the early 1800's. But the Supreme Court Ruling apparently (and I could be wrong on this one) means that they can't buy up new land, and then declare it to be tribal land, free of local jurisdictions. So, they're trying the next best thing. Make it a land trust, and stop paying taxes to those local jurisdictions.
But it's not just the local non-Indian officials who are upset. Apparently, the move by the Wisconsin tribal members has New York Oneida's angry too, who see it as a land grab. There's a terrific series of reports on the Oneidas in the Wisconsin Post-Crescent. The Oneidas have become a gaming powerhouse, and have proposed a controversial casino in Pueblo, Colorado. The Pueblo Chieftain has also done a series on the tribe's expanding fortunes and reach. (Funny how all these Indian names suddenly mean something again.)
And you can tell there must be a lot of money involved, because now Congress wants to get involved. Republican Rep. Richard Pombo, who chairs the House Committee on Resources, which maintains jurisdiction over Native American issues, has announced he plans to bring a resolution to local communities and Indian tribes. Stay tuned.

The Accreditation Plan

2005-09-30T07:08:00.000-05:00

The Land Trust Alliance governing board has approved a new accreditation program after much discussion, and just in time for the LTA's annual rally in Madison, WI next month. The press release announcing the news has some details of the plan.
"Accreditation will require land trusts to adopt Land Trust Standards and Practices, the ethical and technical guidelines for the responsible operation of a land trusts. The accreditation process will use 42 of these practices as indicators for independent verification of a land trust's ability to operate in a sound ethical, legal and technical manner.".....
The accreditation program will be managed by a commission of land trust professionals incorporated as a subsidiary of LTA with independent decision- making authority. The commission will be responsible for the ensuring the
highest level of accountability for the accreditation program and operating a system that is fair, consistent and effective.
The accreditation commission will be incorporated and the first commissioners appointed in February 2006. The commission will design the accreditation review process and procedures in 2006, test these with an initial round of applications in 2007, and be fully operational by 2008.
The design of the accreditation program is based on an extensive year-long public involvement process. Over one thousand comments from the land trust community were received during the course of the program's design and led to
the development of a fair, accessible and credible process. Eighty percent of the nation's land trusts plan to participate in the program and seek accreditation, according to market research conducted this past summer.
LTA is working to make accreditation affordable to all qualified land trusts. With the help of its funders, LTA will provide the financial support to develop the accreditation program and subsidize some of the program's costs in initial years. Applicant fees will be kept affordable, while creating a program that can be financially self-supporting over time.
More details are available over on the LTA's website.

Land Trust Professionalization.

2005-09-26T20:38:00.000-05:00

The bankruptcy of San Diego's Environmental Trust is reverberating through land trust circles. The Seattle Press-Intelligencer has a little more on the story. On the land trust listserv, some interesting debates have started.
Among them, is it more important for land trust leaders to be business professionals first, and nature lovers second? Or do environmental credentials still count for more? I think this goes back to the entire debate over the future of trusts. Are they necessarily evolving away from small volunteer based organizations and moving toward a professional corporation model? There's no doubt the stakes are huge. Trusts by their very nature are about preserving land in perpetuity, and that requires income in perpetuity. Given that even the largest of corporations rarely last more than a hundred years, how can a volunteer organization hope to do the same?
Considering that even the Federal Government is debating selling off some National Parks' holdings, can small organizations really hope to hang onto desirable land forever?
I think the answer is yes if the trusts continue to be populated by people who have business smarts, but are also truly and passionately concerned about the land they are preserving. Business people tend to look at the world dispassionately, with an eye for the bottom line. If trusts become too weighted towards business expertise, the slippery slope will slide much faster. The trick here, as in most everything else in life, is finding the right balance.

Land Trust Bankruptcy

2005-09-23T19:32:00.000-05:00

First the airlines... now the land trusts. San Diego based The Environmental Trust has filed for federal bankruptcy protection. According to the San Diego Union Tribune the trust controls 90 properties around San Diego County... most of them donated by developers to offset other projects.
...But the trust's leaders faltered badly, driving one of the region's oldest land-conservation groups into an unusual bankruptcy.
The shaky finances that caused the trust's collapse raise questions about the long-term stability of land trusts, which own and manage open areas across the United States.
At a hearing Thursday, a federal judge in San Diego will discuss divvying up about 4,000 acres owned or managed by the trust, including the Carlton Oaks preserve in Santee, vernal pools in the county and wetlands in Chula Vista.
"We have two problems – what to do with these particular parcels of land and . . . how to prevent a similar (failure) in the future," said Mike Kelly, manager of the San Diego Conservation Resources Network, formed last year to promote preservation of open space through land trusts.
The article talks about the general concern about Trusts... but it seems as though the problems with The Environmental Trust seem to be similar of any business that goes under... taking on too much without enough resources to pay for it. This sounds like a classic example of bad management and wishful thinking.
San Diego State University biology professor Don Hunsaker II formed The Environmental Trust in 1990, figuring that development soon would overrun some of the region's most ecologically important lands.
"We could see the building booms that were coming," he said.
Hunsaker, now retired, said his primary goal was to protect sections of open land until government agencies took them over or provided an ongoing funding source. But the trust's tax filings said the aim was to "preserve this land in perpetuity."
"Way down deep, I think that all of (the trust backers) knew that perpetuity is a very long time," Hunsaker said. "It was a business model that was built on an expectation that never came to fruition."
By 1998, the trust's assets, including its land holdings and investments, surpassed $18 million, IRS records show. That year, the trust paid Hunsaker $5,918 for working 30 hours a week as the organization's president, according to tax documents.
At the state Department of Fish and Game in San Diego, senior biologist David Mayer watched the expanding outfit win one land-management project after another.
"They were in some cases significantly underbidding their competition, and other firms who were doing good jobs weren't getting some properties," Mayer said.
Hunsaker said he envisioned "passive management," which sometimes boiled down to visiting properties a few times a year to make sure they hadn't burned. "We felt like we were watching over it pretty well," he said.
For the past decade, however, other San Diego conservationists have harbored doubts.
Biologist Scott McMillan said he studied trust land in the Otay Mesa area as part of his master's thesis in the 1990s. McMillan said he tried to help the string of students that The Environmental Trust hired but eventually got burned out because he saw little effort by the organization's officials.
"In many cases, students who had no real work experience were managing these areas that were the most important in San Diego County," he said. "It was guaranteed to fail."
......Because of the trust's unusual circumstances and incomplete record-keeping, its financial picture appears murky. Court records show the trust has about $3.7 million in assets, including $3.1 million in an endowment fund to pay for land-management obligations.
With the exception of three parcels, the trust's lands have no market value because they can't be developed, said Michael Breslauer, the trust's bankruptcy lawyer. He said it was unclear why previous trust managers reported assets seemingly greater than their actual value.
The trust's liabilities were reported at just more than $13 million. Breslauer said that number also appears to vastly overstate the case because previous trust managers did not adequately record the retirement of secured debts.
At this point, the trust aims to offer its parcels to developers, local governments, state and federal wildlife agencies, and finally to other nonprofit conservation groups. Failing any takers, the properties would revert to the state.
"The land stays protected," Breslauer said. "The bankruptcy case is not being used to . . . transform protected habitat into developable property."
Keith Greer, deputy planning director for the city of San Diego, said some parcels within the city are "no-brainers" for acquisition while others are not high-quality conservation parcels.
The state Department of Fish and Game seems even less interested, particularly because the trust's remaining endowment is viewed by most experts as being far below what it will take to manage the lands.
This is a big warning for all Land Trusts. You aren't immune to the natural cycles of business life. Is your trust really financially prepared to survive into perpetuity? Do you have an endowment that will allow you to weather downturns in donations and downturns in the stock market? Be warned, if you don't, this could be your fate.

Let's Head North

2005-09-22T19:48:00.000-05:00

Here at Nature Noted World Headquarters we're watching Hurricane Rita as it churns through the Gulf. We're keeping our fingers crossed that the winds don't push that tree resting on top of the barn at Dad's house all the way to the ground, but most of all, we're watching to make sure that Mrs. Nature Noted's family in Texas stays out of harms' way. That's right, we're two for two on Hurricane hits. It's been such a great month.
But... one of the nice things about this little blog is meeting interesting people from all over the world. Such as the comment from Clare Kines... turns out when you click on his link, he's writing a blog about building a house above the Arctic Circle! Clare's a retired Mountie and writes from a true Northern perspective. Check him out at The House and other Arctic Musings. The Arctic sounds like a fine place to be about right now.....

It's the little things

2005-09-21T12:20:00.000-05:00

When Dad evacuated to Memphis,he was able to contact his insurance, file a claim with FEMA on line and stay up to date on what was going on. He's in fine shape. But if you were on the coast, your access to the internet and even to phone service was, and still is, extremely limited. You'd think the government agencies and insurance companies dealing with this disaster would have realized this by now. Apparently, from this posting on Gulf Coast News they haven't.
People are desperately attempting to get through to FEMA who only has an online registration way of registering their situation. Problem is...there aren't any computers in use in Hancock County. FEMA and Red Cross state that you can call in to register you and your family. If you are lucky enough to HAVE a phone working, service is still sporadic at best, you are either placed on hold, or cut off altogether because the voice mail is full. My sister (who lost her entire house and all her possessions) called to tell me today that FEMA and the Red Cross are a "joke." She has no way of calling and getting a live person, so there's no way to tell any adjuster to meet her at the place where her house USED to be. Phone calls are worthless.
Let's be completely honest here since no one on a government or national media level will be: Communications are hopelessly and ridiculously trashed. FEMA and Red Cross are in WAY over their heads. This is still THE most devastated area this country has ever seen and if not for Gulf Coast News, you - the people spread out across the country and to the four winds from Hancock County - would literally not know there was anything going on there. The prevailing attitude is: relief from the west stops in New Orleans. From the east stops in Biloxi. And from the north stops in Hattiesburg. I mentioned in a prior article that a Colonel from Washington called me up to help him point out Bay St Louis on the map.
For people who do not know the situation on the ground let me spell this out for you clearly and concisely:
Hurricane Katrina's eastern eyewall passed directly over Hancock County with devastatingly high winds and sucking up an enormous amount of water with it. Hurricane Katrina was a MONSTER storm that caused unbelievable devastation to the ENTIRE Gulf Coast, and in particular, wiping out the cities in Hancock County - including the county seat Bay St Louis. Waveland, for all intents and purposes, is no more. The people there who actually have houses standing are the unbelievablely lucky few. There are hundreds and hundreds of people living day to day sleeping on the hard asphalt or on the ground because they have no worldly possessions! People wait in long lines to get what hot meals they can, and in one instance a man reported to me that he nearly gagged on the burnt food, but couldn't waste it because the hot meal was so precious to him. the faith-based organizations are working round the clock to help out with food and comfort to those who have lost all, but they will soon have to pack it in if they aren't supported or relieved of duties for even a little while.
HELP!!!!!!!! People in Hancock County, MS are struggling to survive! They have yet to unearth all the bodies that are more than likely buried in huge piles of rubble and Gulf muck. People who have visited to donate their time are overwhelmed by sadness at the incredibly inhumane conditions in which people are living THREE WEEKS AFTER THE STORM!!! I heard Howard Stern this morning from my radio actually call it best..."what are we, a third world country?!?"
One of the newspapers called for taking down the distribution centers to encourage people to start shopping again and get the money flowing. This may be fine in Biloxi, but Hancock County was DECIMATED! There are no stores. There are no jobs. There are no houses. There is one bank operating. Mayor Tommy Longo has no town left and is pressed to understand just where to begin. Mayor Eddie Favre is showing poise and strength, but is overwhelmed. We have not even BEGUN to come out of the recovery effort, we are not even out of the hurricane season, and they want to take DOWN the distribution centers?.
Bellsouth has set up free satellite phone centers. They have been a tremendous help. Now if someone could come forth with the same type of internet help in Hancock County, more people could get the help they need.

What I Learned From Katrina

2005-09-17T09:35:00.000-05:00

I'm back from what used to be Waveland, Mississippi and I've been struggling with what I should say. By now you've seen the pictures, you've read the descriptions, and heard the survivors talk about their experience. It's all true. No one is exaggerating. This was the Big One. Here are some of the things I think I know after spending several days pulling wet carpet and throwing away furniture and family memories.
1. There is no such thing as a Hurricane Proof house
All along the beachfront of Waveland and Bay St. Louis, there were beautiful homes that were built to not only look good, but to survive anything nature threw at them. They're all gone. I heard the story of the man whose house was built specifically to survive hurricane force winds. The walls were made of reinforced concrete, there were hurricane shutters on the windows. He was so confident he stayed when the storm hit. What he didn't count on was a thirty foot wall of water that would hit with such force that it would blow away everything he had built, and suck him straight out of the building.
My Dad has a good friend who built his hurricane proof house up on pilings. Those pilings are all that's left.
The force of that wave was truly awsome. The only thing that blocked it was the levee formed by the railroad tracks. And I firmly believe that the levee only made a difference only because it ran the same direction as the water. It didn't so much block the water as it did nudge it in the direction it was already going. Those railroad tracks saved Dad's house. We figure the wave that made it over the tracks was about four feet high by the time it hit the house. He has a shed/barn in the back that took the wave first. Everything inside was swirled around. His camper parked under the carport floated out and into the driveway. The wave then broke against the back side of the house. Dad had boarded up the windows, so the initial wave didn't get in and the house is built high enough off the ground so that when the water did get inside we only had about 18 inches of mud and gunk inside. We also are surrounded by woods and bamboo that helped diffuse the force of the wave, so there was no structural damage. That's what saved his house. Distance from the beach. A levee. Natural buffers. Concrete and steel aren't enough.
2.My Sense of Permanence Is Gone
I know that all is vanity, and that everything we build is destined to disappear. But after Katrina I know it emotionally as well. The towns I grew up with. My aunt and uncle's house that was the scene for Thanksgiving's and Christmases and wedding receptions. The front of the house blown away. There's a sailboat in the back yard. And this is a house that sits on a hill above the bay, 21 feet above sea level. The beautiful homes along the beach that I've know all my life are simply gone. Nothing left but a few foundations on the ground, and plastic bags in the trees. My Dad and I talked about this on the ride back. The first thing that rattled my faith in permanence was my Mom's death four years ago. This just sealed it.
3.Get Flood Insurance. Even If You Don't Need It
Or an earthquake rider. Or whatever it is in your homeowner's policy that's not covered in your area. Almost no one in Dad's neighborhood had flood insurance. They weren't in a flood zone. So what's the point. Dad is among the lucky. He says he used to fuss with his State Farm agent every year and think, I don't really need to spend this $200. Now he's so glad he did. Withing 2 hours of meeting with the claim adjuster, he had a check. Because of my cousin the CPA, we also now have a contractor. Dad's house is going to be fine in a couple of months. His neighbors, my aunt and uncle, and most of my cousins are screwed. All but one lived in areas that no one ever thought would flood. Now it's going to take the Federal Government to strong arm the insurance companies into accepting that the high water wasn't "flooding", it was "wind driven high water". What's the difference? For many on the coast, it's the difference between rebuilding and bankruptcy.
4.We Really Do Need Each Other
The first question on the Coast is "Are you okay?" The second is "Have you heard from so and so? Did he make it?" I am stunned not so much by the fact that so many died, as I am that so many survived. Story after story of people who rode out the storm, only to find themselves climbing into the attic, then swimming underwater to safety. One couple swam out of their collapsing house and found a sailboat from the yacht club bobbing by. Others swam to floating roofs. A neighbor is convinced that people survived because the storm hit during daylight, and they could see where they were swimming to.
But once the storm was over, it was neighbors who helped each other. Everything was shared. There were plenty of stories of looting, some of it even while the winds howled. But what came through was the care and shared sacrifice. I heard the story of the rich woman who lived on the beach, in a beautiful home that came complete with a Picasso. She was in the house when it dissolved around her. Our neighbors found her stunned, walking up the street in two mismatched shoes that she pulled out of the mud. No money, no food, no home with a Picasso. They took her in, got her some water and food, and gave her 20 bucks. This from two people who are now living in a metal shed in their backyard, because their home was knocked off its foundation by a falling tree.
After the storm, help came slowly, but when it did come, it came from all over. Baptists with soup kitchens, Mormons with personal hygene kits. Firefighters from Georgia who delivered water to our house, and used heavy equipment to push the fallen trees out of our front yard. Regular Army in full battle gear going house to house, just to see if there was anything we needed, ice, water or whatever. Overhead a constant flow of helicopters. Some flying supplies to the cut-off rural areas, other patrolling at night with infrared, looking for looters.
One of my favorite stories is that of the Sea Coast Echo. The twice weekly chronicle of life in Hancock County that I've been reading since I could read. Their offices were blown away in the wave, so instead the paper is being produced in the water logged home of the publisher, Randy Ponder, who lives three doors down from Dad. Computers are being run by generator power, the paper is being printed in Kentucky and then distributed for free by the staff. You've never seen a newspaper as welcomed as that one. Information is a precious commodity there, particularly for people without electricity or mobility. No one calls it fish wrap now.
5.People Really Are Angry
They're angry because it took days for outside help to reach them. It was two days after the storm before I saw my first story from Hancock County, a CNN report from the foot of what used to be the Bay bridge. Hancock County is essentially a peninsula, and it was cut off. Food, water and help was slow in coming. When President Bush came to Gulfport for his second visit, the local paper, The Sun Herald, buried the story on page 7 with the sub-headline "President Can't Answer Questions About Insurance". This from a paper that endorsed him.
As angry as they are about the lack of federal help, the real anger is being saved for the insurance companies. I'm not going to complain about State Farm. It had people down there in force, got Dad emergency money here in Memphis, and had an adjuster meet us at the house. Because he had flood insurance he went to the front of the line. But we still don't know about the settlements for the flooded out truck or the damage to the house and barn from falling trees. Our across the street neighbors are in worse shape. Their adjuster for a company that I had never heard of showed up two weeks after the storm, spent 20 minutes walking around, and told them he would mail the results in about a week. Keep in mind, mail isn't being delivered. But you could tell he was going to write off the damage to flooding, and wasn't going to pay much at all. We all wanted to just throttle the guy. People know they should have had flood insurance. But they were told they didn't need it, or they convinced themselves. Either way they're stuck. Everything they've worked for is gone. You'd be angry, too.
6.We're Really Lucky
Lucky because my Dad still has a house. Lucky because he had flood insurance. Lucky because everyone in my large extended family on the Coast is alive. Lucky because the biggest, baddest hurricane that anyone around here can remember just clobbered us with her biggest, baddest punch, and we're still here. That surely counts for something.

Shoveling the Muck

2005-09-10T08:01:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of blogging lately. We're working our way back up Maslow's pyramid, and blogging is definitely not on one of the lower levels. So here's the family storm total so far. Everyone in the family is safe and accounted for.... everything else is just gravy. Dad's house appears to be one of the few standing in Waveland, but he did get water inside. We're heading down tomorrow to see what's salvageable. Everyone in Waveland has long depended on the the railroad tracks to protect them, because the tracks form a levee. The tracks did make a big difference, but weren't enough to keep out the water. Here's a link to the aerial view of Dad's neighborhood. His house is in the neighborhood in the top right of the picture. Scroll left and see what's left of the neighborhood on the beach side of the tracks. Nothing. Just across the tracks is the cul-de-sac where my cousin Mary Kay's house used to be. She and her daughter and my aunt and uncle along with 20 other people rode out the storm at her ex's house. Fortunately, the house was on the right side of the tracks, and stayed put. But they all had to climb into the attic to escape the water. Uncle Pete and Aunt Betty's house lost one wall of the house.... and from one of the aerial photos is appears they also gained a sailboat in the backyard. Two other cousins had their houses wiped away, two others had water. (It's a big family)
I've been down to the Coast once, running fuel to our crews working there. Getting gas has been a nightmare, but appears to be getting better. Still, we'll be bringing extra fuel just to be safe.
It's all so sad. But it's not the first time the Coast has been walloped. It's just the biggest wallop ever. I know that people will rebuild, and maybe in ten or 20 years, things will even get prosperous again. But it's going to be a long climb. And I think this time, a lot of folks are going to decide that maybe the new start should happen somewhere else. Wish us luck.

The Good News

2005-08-30T18:45:00.000-05:00

My family members who stayed behind in Waveland, MS have been heard from. They survived. Thank you, God. The destruction is ferocious. Entire beautiful neighborhoods have been swept away. We have no idea what my Dad's house looks like now, but none of that matters now. I've been hearing horrendous stories coming from the coast, of bodies in the roads, of houses being marked with black paint to indicate bodies inside. Many, many people have lost loved ones. New Orleans will never be the same. The Mississippi Gulf Coast will take years and years to recover. Please keep everyone there in your thoughts and prayers.

Katrina Approaches

2005-08-28T08:53:00.000-05:00

Say a prayer for everyone along the central Gulf Coast this morning. My dad has already boarded up, and pulled out. He got into Memphis last night. My aunt and uncle and cousins all plan to ride it out. Dad talked with them this morning and while they are all getting extremely nervous, they don't want to leave. I was nine when Camille hit the Mississippi coast. We were in Houston. My grandmother, aunt & uncle and cousins were in Bay St. Louis. The eye hit Pass Christian and Long Beach, just across the bay. It took us days to find out if everyone was still alive. Three weeks before they would let us in. I can still remember being stunned by miles of trees, all flattened in the same direction. My grandmother had a big house surrounded by pecan trees. Almost everyone of them fell. Miraculously, they all missed the house. You could walk the length and breadth of her large backyard without having to touch the ground. Tree to tree to tree. The only thing that saved them was that the eye hit to their east. For years after Camille, we would drive by one apartment complex that took a direct hit. The only things left were the concrete steps and the foundation. Everything else was gone. The day of the storm, several people held a hurricane party in one of the apartments. Only one person survived, and she was found miles inland. This is going to be a bad one.

Smoky Mountain Land

2005-08-24T20:06:00.000-05:00

The Nature Conservancy is going to play midwife to a plan to eventually transfer nearly 10,000 acres of land to the National Park Service near the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. The first step takes place August 30th when the land's owner, Alcoa Power Generating, will grant to The Nature Conservancy, at no cost, permanent conservation easements covering approximately 5,900 acres and term conservation easements on an additional 3,975 acres of land. The lands over which the conservation easements will be granted are located in Blount and Monroe counties, Tennessee. More specifically, the land effected sits between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Cherokee National Forest. The Nature Conservancy will have the option to buy this land from APGI, ultimately transferring it to the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, or the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, assuring its long-term protection." So says the press release.
And another press release announces that a new Conservation Easement Handbook is ready for release.
he Land Trust Alliance (LTA) and the Trust for Public Land (TPL) have revised and expanded The Conservation Easement Handbook, the definitive resource for land conservation professionals developing a conservation easement program to meet local acquisition needs. With the renewed IRS scrutiny of donations of conservation easements, land donors, their attorneys, and easement-holding organizations will need the best possible guidance to ensure that they are following the letter and the spirit of the law — and this is it. .....
A detailed guide for establishing and maintaining a conservation easement program, the handbook provides technical guidelines for drafting conservation easements—complete with case studies, sample documents and references to landmark court decisions. The two publishers, LTA and TPL, are national nonprofit conservation organizations leading land conservation efforts across the country through training, public finance and transactional support.
"The great conservation opportunities of this century will be on privately owned land, and conservation easements are the most effective way to protect those lands," said Rand Wentworth, LTA president. "Now at this time when easements are under threat, The Conservation Easement Handbook presents critical information to help guide those who design them to last forever."
The handbook reads like a how-to manual and includes topics such as:
Creating an Easement Program - From the basics, such as goal setting and developing criteria for resource protection, to the challenges of creating and executing a conservation priorities plan.
Developing a Stewardship Program - If conservation easements are to last in perpetuity, a well-managed stewardship program is vital.
The Conservation Easement Drafting Guide - An update to the Model Conservation and Preservation Easement published in 1988 and 1996, this section has five chapters dedicated to checklists, sample easement provisions and commentary.
Anyone interested in the new handbook can find ordering information at either LTA publications or TPL publications.

Crumb Sighting

2005-08-24T11:38:00.000-05:00

Crumb Trail's back. I thought Gary had gone the way of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker!

Boon or Boondoggle?

2005-08-23T20:01:00.000-05:00

Federal auditors are taking aim at an Agriculture department program that pays farmers for easements to protect wetlands. The Sacramento Bee reports that while farmers love the payments and environmentalists love the results, the auditors are questioning whether the taxpayers are being overcharged.
"Since its modest beginnings in the 1990 farm bill, the federal program has helped protect 1.4 million acres nationwide, including more than 70,000 acres in California. The federal funds, for instance, have helped restore wetlands on the 600-acre Lonetree Ranch in Merced County, the 640-acre Pryse Farms site in Tulare County and the 232-acre L&L Farms site in San Joaquin County. Sacramento Valley rice farmers and environmental advocacy groups, in particular, have been big fans.
"It's been a success in that we've been able to help landowners convert marginal land into wetlands," Dennis Orthmeyer, wetlands program director for the Sacramento-based California Waterfowl Association, said Friday."
But, hold on there say the auditors...
This month, the Agriculture Department's Office of Inspector General bluntly critiqued the program in a 71-page report that's laden with auditor-speak. "(Agriculture Department) controls are not currently adequate to ensure that its easement valuation process operates effectively, efficiently and in compliance with applicable laws and regulations," auditors warned.
Specifically, the auditors singled out the Agriculture Department's California offices for "significant valuation deficiencies" that cost taxpayers money.
Over the past five years, auditors say, Wetlands Reserve Program problems nationwide cost taxpayers an estimated $159 million in unwarranted payments. Auditors say Agriculture Department officials weren't well-qualified to assess real estate. Rules have been misinterpreted, benefiting farmers. Farmers have collected both crop subsidies and wetlands reserve funding for the same land.
Agriculture department officials defend the program, but conceed the controls need to be tighter. As is usually the case with easements, the problem is how to value them.
How land gets valued is one big problem, with Knight citing a past "difference of opinion" between auditors and his agency. Until now, farmers have received the fair agricultural value of the land being protected. Auditors, however, say this is too much because it ignores the "residual value," which covers other uses such as hunting still possible on the land.
In California, for instance, farmers were paid an average of $2,000 an acre. Auditors contend the protected land retained an average residual value of up to $1,500 an acre. In other cases, farmers have double-dipped, by collecting wetlands funds for land that's also used in fixing crop subsidy payments.
In seven California farms reviewed by the auditors, growers received a total of $838,448 in crop subsidies for land that also drew wetlands reserve funding. Since the seven farms amounted to a big percentage of the 17 California farms included in the overall review, auditors further warned that the statewide problem might be much costlier."
Stand by for more bad news about easements.

The Great Easement Debate

2005-08-19T18:15:00.000-05:00

One of the hottest debates in the land trust world revolves around a recent article in the L.A. Times about a conservation easement granted on Las Tablas Ranch in Paso Robles, California. Here's how the Times sets the story...
..neighbors and local conservationists were much relieved when the owners, the family of rancher Mike Bonnheim, signed an agreement a few years ago to forever protect most of their land from development.
But soon they were startled and dismayed to hear the piercing whine of chain saws and see pallets of freshly cut and split oak trucked from the ranch, bound for firewood markets.
"It was hundreds of truckloads, easily," said Ralph Ward, a neighbor who works as a carpenter. "I do not consider cutting live oaks conservation…. I am very sad…. I am not an extreme tree hugger."
The cutting goes on, specifically allowed under a conservation easement that the owners signed with a local land trust in return for lucrative development credits granted by San Luis Obispo County.
Conservation easements are land-use agreements that usually provide financial incentives for keeping land primarily as open space. Some easements have become controversial, however, because they resemble tax shelters or don't meet public expectations for conservation.
The Bonnheim ranch easement "was negotiated under the guise of halting development in rural areas," said former county planning commissioner and environmental activist Pat Veesart. "How is timber [cutting] consistent with the purpose of a conservation easement?"
Veesart's criticism is part of the nationwide debate over how best to structure and police conservation easements to ensure that natural resources are protected and that the public dollars that often help underwrite the easements are well spent."
The Rest of The Story
So is this a case of easement abuse? The issue is being debated by people interested in land trusts and in the greater environmental movement. The image of hundred year old oaks being cut into firewood has many people upset, others worrying that it will cast all easements into a negative light. While the leaders of the land trust involved are heard from in the story, the executive director doesn't think his side was adequately told. Brian Stark of Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County wrote a spirited defense of the easement and the way the trust has handled it. I asked permission to run it here, which Brian allowed. But he also passed along his letter to the editor of the L.A. Times, which the Times hasn't published.... but I gladly will. Here's the letter.
Dear Editor,
We are disappointed with Tim Reiterman’s recent article “Ranch’s Easement Spawns Controversy” because it does little to describe the important conservation result achieved on the Las Tablas Ranch and instead focuses on activities occurring on a mere 1% of the ranch. Moreover, it tarnishes our organization through unwarranted references to conservation issues that do not apply to this case or to our Conservancy in general.
The article should have addressed the importance of preventing residential development on rural lands. This easement forever protects 5,500 acres of the Las Tablas Ranch from the hundreds of homes and miles of roads that could eventually have been built there. Development would have brought hundreds of people (with their cars and pets and related pollution), the extension of utilities that would encourage development of neighboring ranches, and miles of fences that would block the movement of wildlife. Such development of homes and infrastructure would surely have led to the loss of many more trees than those removed by the Bonnheims’ management practices and damaged the entire ecology of the region: Las Tablas Ranch might have ended up like Porter Ranch or Thousand Oaks.
The article mentions various recent criticisms of conservation easements, but please note: 1) No public money was spent on this easement. While it is the result of a San Luis Obispo County program, all funding is from private sources. The casual allusions to state bond-funded projects and public expectations are misleading; 2) The Land Conservancy of SLO County strictly monitors the Bonnheims’ compliance with the easement’s conditions and will use all available legal means to enforce those terms. The reference to “weaknesses in enforcement” does not apply here; 3) Our Conservancy conducts all our activities in accordance with the Land Trust Alliance’s Standards and Practices, which ensure ethical and effective conservation transactions.
Conservation Easements are a very valuable conservation tool and the public needs to know that these are voluntary transactions with landowners. Each easement is custom written to meet conservation goals while retaining reasonable land uses on the property. The Bonnheims did not have to conserve anything. They instead chose to restrict development even though development would have been more lucrative.
The Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County feels strongly that protecting oak woodlands is important and we respect the public views that support this goal. The Bonnheims have been good stewards of their entire ranch, a point your article neglects. We believe that the minimal timber management underway will not fundamentally damage this oak woodland and that the Las Tablas Ranch Conservation Easement provides protection that far exceeds the limited impacts seen in the small managed area.

Brian Stark
Executive Director
Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County

To me, the most telling thing is that no public money was spent on the easement. This wasn't an easement done for tax purposes.... private money raised by the trust was used to buy the easement. And the trust knew what it was getting. A conscious decision was made that the greater good was to keep the land free from development, while allowing it to remain a working ranch. You can make the argument that it's better for the trees to stay, and no clearing be allowed. But it seems like if those were the conditions, the easement would have never been sold, and all the land would have eventually turned into a housing development.
Again, it goes back to educating the public and yes, the media (of which I'm a member) of the nuances of conservation easements. It's the old story of living in the real world and making the best choices you can. In this case, The Land Conservancy leaders made a choice that it was better to keep the ranch as it is now, than to let it turn into something more developed.

Rain Redux

2005-08-17T20:21:00.000-05:00

To my little musings yesterday on the lack of rain in this part of the world, let me point your attention to a blog that covers an entirely different universe.... business. One of the blogs I enjoy reading is Jeff Matthews Is Not Making This Up. Matthews is a business analyst who presents (to me, at least) real world business savvy insights. So what does this have to do with a lack of rain?
In his latest entry Matthews recounts a recent conference call by John Deere, as the leaders of the global farm equipment company tried to explain a recent slowdown in sales. Here's how Matthews put it....
There have been plenty of articles in recent days about the Midwest drought and barges grounded on mud in the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, so the company’s U.S. commentary was not much of a surprise:
Also during the quarter drought really took hold in the U.S. Midwest. While this has not hurt ag retail sales to date but as the dryness persisted into the critical July pollination period for corn it became clear to us that customers in drought stricken areas could suffer meaningful yield losses and they might put off equipment purchases as a result.
But the drought is not just concentrated in the central United States.
In Europe, the drought in southern Europe that was mentioned on the conference call in May intensified and spread. Spain and Portugal are the driest in 60 years and drought continues, conditions have spread to parts of France and Italy.
Furthermore, it goes beyond North America and the Old World:
Brazil, already hurt by drought and narrowing farm incomes, witnessed the continued weakening of the U.S. dollar versus the real during the quarter. The dollar is down 21% versus the real over last year. That is bad news for farmers who pay their expenses in real but sell their crops in U.S. dollars which have been losing value. Just how weak are things in Brazil? Well Deere's combine sales are off about 70% in the last six months and tractors over 50%
Read the rest of the entry, but the point is inescapable. Wall Street is starting to notice this Global Warming Thing.

Where's the Water?

2005-08-16T19:12:00.000-05:00

It's nothing to rival the 1930's.... but have you noticed that it's not raining much lately? It's not news in the West... see this article or many others like it in New West. In Wisconsin, environmental groups like The Nature Conservancy are watching lake levels drop to worrisome levels. Here in Memphis, the Mississippi river is dropping to levels that haven't been seen in years. The Arkansas side of the river is starting to look like one very big beach. Our own Redneck Riviera, indeed. It's being called the worst drought in the Midwest in nearly 20 years.
Weather Channel meteorologist Mike Seidel explained to The Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm Tuesday that it's been warmer than usual in most parts of the Northeast and Midatlantic, but that comes on the heels of two cooler-than-average summers. So, "When it gets up to around 100, it just feels worse."
That said, "We are seeing more extremes, and they're even more extreme than they were before. Global warming modelers plug in warmer temperatures down the road. And what we're seeing is, down the road, if we do keep getting warmer like we're seeing, we'll see more extreme weather.
"Here's a little statistic, too: Back in the 1800s, once every seven Julys, you had a 100-degree afternoon. Now, it's one day every four Julys you see 100 in New York."
Feeling hot, hot, hot.

The Land Use Priority

2005-08-12T22:42:00.000-05:00

World Land Use Seen As Top Environmental Issue. That's the headline on a study from the University of Wisconsin and the July 22, 2005 journal Science.
The massive conversion of the world's natural landscapes to agriculture and other human uses may soon begin to undermine the capacity of the planet's ecosystems to sustain a burgeoning human population.......
a group of leading scientists portrays the escalating transformation of the world's forests, wetlands, savannahs, waterways and other native landscapes as the biggest potential threat to human health and global sustainability.
"Short of a collision with an asteroid, land use by humans is the most significant impact on the world's biosphere," according to Jonathan A. Foley, a UW-Madison climatologist and the lead author of the Science paper. "It may be the single most pressing environmental issue of our day."
The new Science paper was written by a group of leading environmental scientists representing a wide range of scientific disciplines, including biology, climatology, medicine, limnology, geography and earth science. Foley directs the UW-Madison Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment in the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.
Land use, according to the report, is no longer just a local issue. It is a force of global importance as the world's six billion people compete for food, water, fiber and shelter. The report, says Foley, is a comprehensive review of scientific research on the world's major land-use practices - agriculture, urban and rural development, deforestation and other natural resource extraction - and their impacts on the world's ecosystems.
According to Foley, nearly one-third of the world's land surface is now in use for agriculture and millions of acres of natural ecosystems are converted each year. Many of the agricultural practices, built on Western-style methods, are unsustainable, requiring large applications of chemical fertilizers and further sculpting of the landscape to divert water to marginal lands.
"While land use practices vary greatly across the world, their ultimate outcome is generally the same: the acquisition of natural resources for immediate human needs, often at the expense of degrading environmental conditions," the authors write.
One example, Foley says, is changing patterns of human and animal disease as climate changes and allows pathogens to flourish in regions where they previously did not exist. Diseases such as West Nile, malaria, cholera, Rift Valley fever and hanta virus are examples of infectious diseases that have emerged in new places and whose frequency has increased as land use and ecological patterns shift.
Foley emphasizes that scientists must look beyond the world's wilderness and consider the whole landscape, including cities, suburbs and agricultural areas in their assessments of global environmental health. "We need to look at land use in a global context. The whole system needs to be considered."
I certainly agree with the conclusions, but I can already see one example that may bring the entire argument into question.
Among the examples given as "sustainable land use practices that provide both economic and environmental advantages:
New York City's purchase of development rights in the Catskills to enhance the city's water supply. The practice resulted in an estimated $5 billion to $7 billion savings for water purification services."
I know that this is a matter of some debate....A PERC report called it nothing more than an urban myth. Read the release and the PERC report, and decide for yourself on this one. But on the overall thrust of the report.... good stewardship always seems like a good idea to me.

Make Crooked the Straight

2005-08-11T07:09:00.000-05:00

You see it in spots all over the country. Rivers and streams that had been straightened in the name of flood control, or agriculture or navigation. It's the old, "it seemed like a good idea at the time". The latest example is in Utah, where The Nature Conservancy is working to put the bends back into Kays Creek, which flows into the Great Salt Lake.
"After [the creek] was put into a straight channel, it destroyed the bird habitat and created flooding for the farmers upstream and, basically, made a nightmare for the Davis County Mosquito Abatement District," said Chris Brown, project manager for the Nature Conservancy in Utah.
With the population in surrounding communities swelling by 65 percent during the past 20 years, preservationists deem the restoration project critical to the survival of dozens of bird species that use the Great Salt Lake as rest stop in their natural migration patterns.
The nonprofit organization, which operates a 4,000-acre preserve in west Kaysville, plans to spend $345,000 to restore the final mile of Kays Creek where it feeds into the lake. The group is seeking funding from the state's LeRay McAllister Critical Land Conservation Fund along with donations from organizations such as Ducks Unlimited to pay for the project.
"This is the first time at our Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve where the Nature Conservancy has gone beyond protecting habitat to actually trying to return it to its historic and natural state," Amanda Smith, the group's government-relations specialist, told the Davis County Commission, which passed a resolution Tuesday supporting the project.
Sometimes the best way from one place to another isn't necessarily a straight line.

Duck Soup

2005-08-09T18:56:00.000-05:00

Memphis based Ducks Unlimited has made its first property buy in Colorado.... 160 acres adjacent to the largest state owned wetland property there, Russell Lakes. The purchase is an infill.... a pocket of land surrounded by the existing preserve in the San Luis Valley, which had been in private hands. According to the wildlife columnist for the Rocky Mountain News the purchase is an exception to DU's more common way to preserve property there.... buying easements instead of property. And it may stay the exception......
In its first outright purchase of land in Colorado, the conservation organization .... has just signed the deed to 160 acres of wetland property adjacent to the state wildlife area.
Lying within the Russell Lakes complex, the land was part of a ranch owned by the Davey family for more than a century. (DU program manager Bob )Sanders said owners Alan and Eric Davey went to DU as their first-choice buyer, knowing the group would preserve the wetland.
"For them to have come to us was a real honor," he said.
He concedes 160 acres isn't much compared with some of DU's huge purchases, including those in South Dakota's pothole country. But this is a sweet addition, supporting some of the highest duck densities in the Russell Lakes complex.....
While it might seem obvious DU eventually would pass the land on to the Division of Wildlife to join the rest of the state area and provide additional public access, that might not happen.
Sanders said it's too early to tell what will become of the Davey parcel, but the current political climate might make it impossible for the DOW to acquire the land.
The state legislature this year passed a bill creating a $5 habitat stamp to raise money for wildlife habitat but restricted outright purchases. The new law exhorts the DOW to lease land for hunting and fishing. The message was that legislators probably will refuse future requests for state fee-title purchases.
DU's usual method of protecting habitat is with conservation easements, which pay owners to retire their development options but offer no guarantee of public access. Sanders said the group has protected 12,000 acres in the San Luis Valley by removing the temptation to sell and develop ranches and farms.
The legislature's emphasis on easements over purchases has been criticized.... but still seems the best way to make limited funds go further.

Off Topic - Report from Jerusalem

2005-08-06T21:11:00.000-05:00

This has nothing to do with land trusts.... but I'll hope you'll forgive the tangent. The following is by Robert Bryce, and was published in Arab News. Bob is an old friend from high school, and was in Israel on assignment for World Energy Review Monthly. This was originally intended as a note for friends and family, but gives a perspective on the Middle East I haven't seen.
Hope you find it worthwhile.
Third Intifada May Not Be Long in Coming
Robert Bryce, Arab News

After a week in this country, and four trips to the West Bank (three of them to Ramallah, which requires passage through the chaotic, dusty, noisy checkpoint at Calandia) I find that the sense of anger among the Arab population is palpable. More interesting perhaps, is that both Israelis and Palestinians alike believe that the third intifada is coming and that it won’t be long in coming. And as one Palestinian who lives in East Jerusalem told me, “three is a magic number.” Thus, the third war will be bloodier, longer, and nastier than the first two intifadas.
This picture is from the top of the Mount of Olives, in the town of Bethany. For Christians, Bethany is one of the most important locations in the Holy Land. Bethany is where the Palm Sunday procession began. Bethany was the home of Mary and Martha, in whose home Jesus stayed. Today, a nine-meter high wall has divided Bethany. For residents of Bethany, getting to the other side of their town now requires a 30-minute drive around the “separation wall.” The impoverished little town that has a couple of Christian enclaves has been sliced in two.
I didn’t come here to write about the plight of Christians in the Holy Land. That said, it’s more than obvious that the holiest places in Christendom are besieged. Roadblocks, checkpoints and the ongoing construction of Israel’s “separation” wall are garroting Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus Christ.
I just got a UN report that says that ten percent of Bethlehem’s Christians have fled the city in the past four years. The report, issued in December 2004, begins by saying “The glory of Bethlehem...is vanishing.”
The Mount of Olives has been carved in two by the wall.
In the Old City, in Jerusalem, the Christian Quarter is a stark contrast to the Arab and Jewish Quarters. In the other two quarters, the two faiths appear to be locked in a population race. Nearly every Orthodox Jewish couple is pushing a stroller or carrying a baby. In the always-mobbed Arab Quarter, teenagers and kids are everywhere. The statisticians say that half of the Palestinian population is under the age of 17.
In both the Jewish Quarter and the Arab Quarter, you have to watch where you walk, and keep your arms at your sides, because people are everywhere, squeezing through the narrow passages of the Old City. In the Christian Quarter — except perhaps, for the areas directly adjacent to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre — you can walk with your arms akimbo, hell, you can walk with your arms stretched full out, and you probably won’t hit a single person. It’s a ghost town.
So, after a week in Israel, the question that jumps out at me is obvious: Why don’t American Christians give a damn?
The fundamentalist Christian movement in America has never been stronger. President George W. Bush frequently professes his faith and has even declared that God guided his war in Iraq. Tom DeLay, the House Majority leader, is born again. The Religious Right dominates the discussion on abortion, prayer in schools, and many other matters.
And yet, when it comes to the Holy Land, there is silence. Is this Christian eschatology run amok? Do America’s conservative Christians simply not understand what’s happening in Israel? Or, more cynically, do they simply not care? When it comes to their faith, do these Christians not care about the turf that provides the physical underpinnings for their faith? My friend, Saro Nakashian, is an Armenian Christian who lives in the Armenian Quarter in the Old City, in a small house that is 300 years old. He’s exactly my age, 44. He studied in the states for six years. He works in Ramallah as a consultant to the Palestinian Authority. He speaks four languages: “Armenian at home. Arabic at the market. Hebrew to pay my phone bill. And English for business.” Saro has lived in Jerusalem since 1968. At that time there were 18,000 Armenian Christians in the Quarter. Today, there are 2,000. When I asked him why the Americans aren’t interested in what’s happening the Holy Land, he replied, “The American churches only care about expanding the size of their congregations. They don’t care about what’s happening over here.”
Finally, after a week in this town, walking all over, taking taxis all over the region, I expected to see just a bit of a Catholic presence. Yet, in all my time here, I have seen exactly one Roman collar. And that collar was on a Japanese Catholic priest and he was in the plaza in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. And I might be mistaken about his collar. The Vatican may be expanding its influence in Africa and Latin America, but it’s got nothing happening in Jerusalem.
I want to like Israel. I want to see peace here between the Jews and the Arabs. Alas, after seeing the wall, after seeing what’s happening in the Old City, after seeing the daily humiliation of the Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces, I’m not holding my breath.

Nature's Keepers

2005-08-05T07:19:00.000-05:00

Jon at The Uneasy Chair is out of the river and pointing out a review of "Nature's Keepers" in the latest Conservation in Practice. "Nature's Keepers" by Bill Birchard is a history of how The Nature Conservancy become the biggest environmental organization on the planet. Management guru Tom Peters has a long interview with Birchard. Chapter excerpts are available on Birchard's website. Thanks for the head's up, Jon.

Managing the Model Forest

2005-08-04T07:06:00.000-05:00

Dr. Peter Bates and the people of Waynesville, N.C. are about to begin upon an experiment that could have a major impact on determining whether "sustainable forestry" is really sustainable. Check out this excellent article in the Smoky Mountain News about the plan by Dr. Bates and a team of scientists to study the watershed around Waynesville. The article by Becky Johnson is one of the best I've seen explaining how sustainable forestry can work, how it can actually make the forest healthier, and why some people still don't trust it.
Dr. Bates is a professor at Western Carolina University, and has gathered a team of experts from around the country to use Waynesville in a way that could be a national model.
In the past, conservation easements have gone into minute detail about what couldn’t be done — no replanting, no trimming, no cutting, no thinning, no burning, no spraying.
“They are well meaning but very rigid,” Bates said. “There are some cases where there was an insect or disease problem and there was treatment for it, but the easement prevented it.”
The new strategy in forest conservation easements is to focus on overall strategies and philosophies, allowing flexibility under the umbrella of conservation, Bates said.
“The goal is to create and maintain a healthy forest in that watershed, but it doesn’t say how to do that,” Bates said. “It’s causing the town to cross that hurdle and think about the forest in a holistic way, as opposed to the alternative, which is to not even think about it, and say ‘we’re just going to let what happens and let nature run its course.’”.........
...... A healthy forest also means having a mix of gigantic 200-year-old oaks and young maple saplings, bogs for turtles and nesting trees for owls, woodland patches of ginseng and ramps, and a few clearings conducive to blueberry bushes.
“Everyone agrees on these big picture kind of things and that they are good goals. But how do you get there? When you get into the nitty gritty of what is a healthy forest, there are all sorts of value judgments,” Bates said.
The first job is collecting baseline data. That is the primary goal of the 18-month study Bates and his team are proposing. Plant and animal species, habitat types, soil types, and archaeology sites will be surveyed — and, of course, water quality.
“Water quality is ultimate barometer of how you are doing managing your forest,” Bates said.
Bates said Waynesville’s watershed could become a national model and influence both private and public forest stewardship. “There is no example of this in the Southern Appalachians,” Bates said. “This will be an opportunity to demonstrate what sustainable forest management truly is, because that’s a buzz word that everyone is using to describe what they are doing. “All of us in that larger movement realize the only way to demonstrate what it really is, is to get it on the ground so people can see it,” Bates said.....
But not everyone is convinced that this is a good idea.
Charles Miller, a Waynesville resident and staunch opponent of logging in the watershed, asked why Waynesville should sacrifice its watershed to be a national model for forestry. “They are just using it for an experimental study up there,” Miller said. “How can they prove they can do it if it’s a model that’s never been done? I don’t think we need to use the watershed as an experimental project.......Miller said the loggers can’t be trusted. You can tie a red flag around the trees to be cut, but sometimes they “accidentally” cut more than you mark. The trees can’t be put back afterwards. “Who’s going to police this if it ever takes place?” Miller asked"
If you are at all interested in learning about sustainable forestry, read the entire article. I will be very interested to see how the Waynesville experiment plays out.

Take a hike

2005-08-03T07:15:00.000-05:00

The nation's newest conservancy is also one of the oldest. The 80 year old Appalachian Trail Conference has changed its name to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. Makes it sound more like an environmental organization that a small college football league, and they don't even have to change the monograms on their luggage! Seriously now, why the change? Here's the explanation on the new website.
"“Conference” does not describe our primary work today, and it confuses people who might otherwise want to support us. (Not to mention those who call seeking to rent a meeting room at our “conference center.”) While the Appalachian Trail welcomes three to four million visitors a year, only a tiny fraction—less than one percent—are members of the ATC, supporting the uncommon care behind the uncommon place they have just enjoyed. Our research showed that Trail users did not see a reason to join an organization that, if they knew about it at all, exists only to coordinate “the real work” done by others.
If the A.T. is going to survive well into the twenty-second century, we must lay the groundwork now for raising our profile and growing our membership base. Without a higher public profile and broader public support, we will be unable to fend off the impact of threats, such as communications towers and road construction and tree-killing pollution, or provide the Trail-maintaining clubs with the financial and other support that they have identified as a critical need."
The name change was made last year and actually became effective July 4th.

Elvis lives

2005-08-02T07:05:00.000-05:00

Those doubting Thomases who questioned the existence of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker are now eating cro...er, their words. As is being widely reported audiotapes of the bird's distinctive cry have won over the skeptics. And it looks like Elvis has a Priscilla out there with him.
"“The bird that we saw had to have a mommy and a daddy,” said Scott Simon, director of the Nature Conservancy in Arkansas. “We have solid evidence for one. We believe there are more."
And to stretch the Presley metaphor even more (it is almost death week, you know), the next step is to make sure that Graceland stays in good shape.
Farmers in the three county area around Brinkley, Arkansas are being asked to attend a meeting tonight on financial incentives (read conservation easements) to preserve the habitat around the Big Woods.
Up to 6,200 acres of private land is wanted to establish a Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program near where the rare woodpecker was spotted. Conservationists say having the farmer's cooperation would preserve the bird's habitat in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge. The meeting is planned for Tuesday at 6:30 at the Brinkley Convention Center.
Let's keep Elvis out of Heartbreak Hotel. Thank you very much.

The Lorax diaries

2005-08-01T11:40:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Andy over at Gristmill for the nice plug for Nature Noted. In a leap of connections that only hypertext can follow, the shout-out was inspired by a deep discussion over at The Commons on the underlying environmental themes in Dr. Seuss's story of the Lorax. You just can't make this stuff up. Anyway, thanks so much for the kind words. By the way, I definitely prefer the term Gristmillers.

Where the wild things are

2005-07-31T16:44:00.000-05:00

Cool little story in the New York Times this morning on a mapping project to show where the truly wild places are now. It comes with a popup map of the continental U.S. showing the few places left here.
The work was compiled by the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Center for International Earth Science Information at Columbia. Their websites have similar maps for the entire world. As you might guess, the truly wild places tend to be a little on the hot or cold side. Think Canada, Siberia and the Sahara.
In the U.S., four of the most "untouched by human hands" areas are....
-The Jarbridge Wilderness of Nevada
-The Central Idaho Wilderness
-The Endless Mountains and Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania (yes, Pennsylvania)
-and, the Texas Grasslands along the Gulf Coast.

The best way to clean

2005-07-31T16:08:00.000-05:00

Follow me here, I really do have a theme today.....
The first involves nature's way of clearing the woods.... fire. The Washington Post takes a look at the debate over whether to suppress or encourage wildfires. We've gone from putting out every fire to what's being called "a culture of fire" in the wild. Is the pendelum swinging too wildly? Or just beginning to swing?
The second comes from a long (trust me, really long) debate that's been going on over on the land trust listserv over whether it's okay to get rid of poison ivy, and if it is, what's the best way to do it? (The consensus seems to be, it's okay in areas where people will come in contact with it. And Round-up works, but paint it on the leaves, don't just spray.) That lead to a debate on the effects of pesticides in general, and Round-up in particular. This reprint from Le Monde raises some interesting questions about Round-up. I've used it around the house as a weed killer, and can attest to its effectiveness. But now with the rise of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO's), Round-up may have side effects that haven't been foreseen. Check out the articles and debate amongst yourselves....
See, I told you I had a theme.

Scouting the Sierras

2005-07-29T07:02:00.000-05:00

A couple of items of note from the western horizon....
California officials may be close to deciding on a home for the Sierra Nevada Conservancy. At least the folks in Auburn, CA hope so. The Auburn Journal reports the headquarters of the conservancy, and the jobs that come with it, may be headed there. The conservancy board wants a location below the snowline.
The new focus may push cities with snowfall, such as Truckee, out of the running. But Colfax, Placerville and Nevada City, three heavy contenders, are still hoping to capture the headquarters.
The conservancy is currently holding a series of six sub-regional meetings. Meetings have been held in Bishop and Susanville, while a third is scheduled for today in Sonora.
Three other meetings will be held at as-yet-undetermined sites. One is scheduled for Sept. 15 in the central region, which includes Placer County.
Crawford Tuttle, deputy secretary for external affairs for the California Resources Agency, said the selection of a headquarters would likely not be made until an executive officer is chosen. That will be the subject of a September board meeting.
Conservation fund started
A fund has been started to honor the memory of one of the driving forces behind the Sierra Nevada Conservancy. The fund honors Dennis Machida, who was executive officer of the California Tahoe Conservancy. The Tahoe Daily Tribune reports..
Machida's widow, Kathie Wong, said they hope to fund projects which need small grants in the range of $500 to $2,000.
They are particularly interested in projects that take advantage of existing community resources and volunteer efforts, as well as environmental education projects.
They will consider proposals from both individuals and groups and from within or outside the Lake Tahoe Basin.
Machida had been the executive officer of the conservancy since 1985. He suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 58 while attending a climate research conference in Montana.

Sagebrush Solution

2005-07-26T11:24:00.000-05:00

NY Times' columnist John Tierney is giving a thumbs up to the Grand Canyon Trust and a thumbs down to the Interior Department. Tierney highlights efforts by the Trust to work with ranchers to buy Bureau of Land Management grazing permits from the ranchers in sensitive areas, allowing the ranchers to buy permits in areas that are easier to reach. The ranchers like it, but local leaders and some in the Interior Department aren't so sure it's a good idea.

Turning brownfields green

2005-07-26T07:10:00.000-05:00

The executive director of the Long Island chapter of The Nature Conservancy is moving on to try some different.
Here's how Newsday puts it.....
Paul Rabinovich resigned last week as executive director of the Long Island chapter of the Nature Conservancy, but what struck us most was where he's going, not where he's been: to start a real estate company focused on redeveloping brownfields and other sites that could revitalize downtowns.
"I have always been aware in doing this work that while the Nature Conservancy works on one side of that sprawl equation - saving the land before it can be developed - there is another side that I think is equally a strong remedy for sprawling development, and that is to redevelop our downtown areas," Rabinovich told us shortly after he resigned.
For Rabinovich - who spent 11 years at the Nature Conservancy, the last six as its executive director - the move is a return to his roots. His new company, TerraCycle, will be affiliated with the family real estate business founded by his mother. But he's also getting in on what may be the next great movement in real estate: recycling and revitalizing land.
"There are a lot of existing real estate companies that are realizing that there is an untapped market," said Sarah Lansdale, executive director of the nonprofit group Sustainable Long Island, which is putting together a survey of the local brownfields industry. "There are some new national real estate developers that are specifically focused on brownfields redevelopment, some are trying to break into Long Island."
Rabinovich plans offices in Philadelphia - home of the family business - Montclair, N.J., and probably on the East End. About his decision to leave, he said, "It's just the right time personally, but I also think that we need to open a new frontier for environmental action. If we're actually going to have a chance of getting through the next generation on Long Island with a healthy environment, a part of that has to be developing attractive vibrant, affordable downtown areas. ... I'm equally driven by the promise of that as I am by the challenge."

They say Elvis is dead too.....

2005-07-21T21:07:00.000-05:00

Well, the party poopers are doing their thing on the discovery of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker down I-40 from Memphis in the Big Woods. The Uneasy Chair and Sphere have all the links you'd ever want. It'll be interesting to see how this one plays out... but as we know here in Memphis, just because they say Elvis isn't around, it doesn't mean that thousands of fans won't show up here every August anyway. I say let the Lord God Bird live!
The Creepiest Sound You'll Hear Today
Want to hear the sound of the earth splitting apart? That's what you'll hear on this mp3 link from Columbia University. This is how the Earth Institute at Columbia puts it..
When the sea floor off the coast of Sumatra split on the morning of December 26, 2004, it took days to measure the full extent of the rupture. Recently, researchers at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory analyzed recordings of the underwater sound produced by the magnitude 9.3 earthquake. Their unique approach enabled them to track the rupture as it moved along the Sumatra-Andaman Fault, raising the possibility that scientists could one day use the method to track underwater earthquakes in near real time and opening new avenues in seismologic research
It takes a few seconds to hear anything, but when it gets going, you'll hear the power of the earth. Truly awsome.

Hither and Yon

2005-07-20T07:02:00.000-05:00

A few things that might be of note....
Fellow Kelley Comet Robert Bryce has an article in Slate that puts some numbers to the idea that ethanol is even more of a boondoggle than opponents had thought. Robert, who is now the Managing Editor of World Energy Monthly Review puts it this way..
David Pimentel, a professor of ecology at Cornell University who has been studying grain alcohol for 20 years, and Tad Patzek, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, co-wrote a recent report that estimates that making ethanol from corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel itself actually contains.
The two scientists calculated all the fuel inputs for ethanol production—from the diesel fuel for the tractor planting the corn, to the fertilizer put in the field, to the energy needed at the processing plant—and found that ethanol is a net energy-loser. According to their calculations, ethanol contains about 76,000 BTUs per gallon, but producing that ethanol from corn takes about 98,000 BTUs. For comparison, a gallon of gasoline contains about 116,000 BTUs per gallon. But making that gallon of gas—from drilling the well, to transportation, through refining—requires around 22,000 BTUs.
In addition to their findings on corn, they determined that making ethanol from switch grass requires 50 percent more fossil energy than the ethanol yields, wood biomass 57 percent more, and sunflowers 118 percent more. The best yield comes from soybeans, but they, too, are a net loser, requiring 27 percent more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced. (Neither Pimentel nor Patzek have taken money from the oil or refining industries.) In other words, more ethanol production will increase America's total energy consumption, not decrease it.
The article notes that we would make more of an impact on cutting oil consumption by funneling those billions in ethanol subsidies into solar powar and more fuel efficient cars.
International Paper to restructure
IP has announced a big restructuring that may mean the corporate headquarters could be moving here to Memphis. And it also could mean selling off 6.8 million acres of forest land. IP is currently one of the largest landowners(pdf) in North America, and has been a big proponent of sustainable forestry. Let's hope if the company sells the land, the buyers will want to continue that practice.

TNC says ease up on GOCO

2005-07-18T07:00:00.000-05:00

The Colorado state director of The Nature Conservancy is coming to the defense of GOCO (Great Outdoors Colorado). As noted here earlier this month, some legislators have been criticizing GOCO for relying on easements, and not buying land outright. The debate is over whether the original vote that set up GOCO was sold as a land buying mechanism, and whether the current board has a bias against the state holding property. In an op-ed column in Sunday's Rocky Mountain News, Charles Bedford says the criticisms are way off base.
"Starting in 2003, GOCO initiated a rigorous public process that focused state and local agencies and nonprofits on identifying conservation needs and opportunities. Following this call for strategic vision and proposals, they opted not to borrow against Colorado's future. Instead, the organization found creative opportunities to preserve more than 80,000 acres with current resources and without borrowing. GOCO still has the option to bond, but in our mind, GOCO's strategy was bold as well as fiscally responsible.
In the interest of full disclosure, Mr. Bedford probably should have noted that TNC and GOCO have collaborated on projects. But the argument he makes is on the money.

The IRS wants to hear from you...or does it?

2005-07-15T20:20:00.000-05:00

The IRS is seeking comments on conservation easements, but it seems to be stacking the deck by the way it asks the questions. The request for comment is straight from the "when did you stop beating your wife?" school of questionaires.
"The IRS would like to hear from members of the public that have questions or comments about abusive transactions involving charitable contributions of easements."
Not, The IRS would like to hear your comments on the conservation easement deduction.... it focuses on abuses.
"In recognition of our need to preserve our heritage, Congress allowed an income tax deduction for owners of significant property who give up certain rights of ownership to preserve their land or buildings for future generations.
The IRS has seen abuses of this tax provision that compromise the policy Congress intended to promote. We have seen taxpayers, often encouraged by promoters and armed with questionable appraisals, take inappropriately large deductions for easements. In some cases, taxpayers claim deductions when they are not entitled to any deduction at all (for example, when taxpayers fail to comply with the law and regulations governing deductions for contributions of conservation easements)."
Want to learn more? The only additional information listed is the Testimony of Steven T. Miller on the Tax Code and Land Conservation or for a different point of view, how about Improper conservation easements (speech by Steven T. Miller)? And who is the impartial Steven T. Miller? He's the IRS Commissioner, Tax Exempt and Government Entities. Well, he'll make sure conservation easements get a positive hearing, won't he? Or if you want to hear from someone besides Mr. Miller, you can check out the news release announcing "dirty dozen" tax scams, including contributions of historic facade easements)
No stacking the deck on this one! Hey IRS, why not include some of the congressional testimony from the land trust leaders? Would that be too balanced?

The Fire Next Time

2005-07-15T07:07:00.000-05:00

Did anyone else out there catch P.O.V's documentary "The Fire Next Time" on PBS this week? It was a completely disturbing movie, and an eye opener for me. Here's the synopsis along with other sidebar stories. The film documented two years in the Flathead Valley of Montana, watching the level of animosity grow between "environmentalists" and "loggers". I use quotation marks, because those descriptions don't really do justice to the groups, or the people caught in between. The film also looked at the role talk radio is playing in stirring up things.
I left the film with great admiration for the public officials who were willing to be verbally pummelled without lashing back, without trying to find scapegoats of their own. They were just doing their best to do their jobs. Trying to make the Flathead Valley a place where their children could grow up in peace, and prosper.
So much is going on there. Jobs vs. environment. Class warfare. Intolerance. The world of black and white and no shades of gray in between. Tom Friedman in the NY Times recently wrote about a big change going on in another, even angrier part of the world. In looking at Israel's decision to close Jewish settlements in Gaza, he noted the rise of what he called "the resurgent center". How Israelis have finally gotten sick of the extremism of both sides, and are saying enough is enough. They've decided that eternal conflict is just no way to live.
There's a lesson in there for all of us, from the streets of Memphis to the forests of the Flathead Valley. Tone down the rhetoric. Calm down the emotions. Find the middle ground. It's time for cooler heads to prevail.

Pigs and Perpetuity

2005-07-14T07:05:00.000-05:00

The Nature Conservancy and the National Park Service are free to keep killing wild pigs on California's Santa Cruz Island. A federal judge declined to stop the practice, which is designed to save a fox native to the island, by wiping out the non-native pigs. As much of a ruckus as this has raised, the program does seem to be achieving its aims. The population of fox pups has hit a record high.
-Another controversy on the other side of the country.... A Rhode Island school district has reached a tentative deal with The Nature Conservancy to build a new elementary school on a 13 acre parcel of land that was originally purchased as "open space".
The Westerly Sun says some are troubled by the decision. The land was originally purchased with $400,000 from TNC and $556,500 in taxpayer money from "open space" bonds. Now the school district wants to to pay $200,000 to TNC.
"In exchange for those funds, the conservancy will agree to let Charlestown use a 13-acre "envelope" of land at the front of the site, along Route 2, to build a new elementary school. And Charlestown will grant the conservancy an easement through that 13-acre parcel.
The council's decision to site a school on an open-space parcel, and to invest further open-space bond funding to develop it for a municipal use, may be considered controversial, just as a town council proposal to fund a portion of the new police station project with open space funds was hotly contested earlier in the year.
Councilor Kate Waterman, a long-time advocate of conservation issues, voted in opposition Monday to her fellow member's choice of site and investment of further funding.
"I guess you can say I'm doing it again, voting on principal and not on practicality. But this (land) was originally purchased for open space purposes. I'm not sure the voters would agree that allowing a municipal use on the site was what they had in mind."
"I cannot help but think that going in this direction is a real danger," said Waterman.
But council President Deborah Carney said the town was lucky that, following successful negotiations with the Conservancy, the parcel ended up as a possible site for the new school. "There's not a lot of properties out there any more with a "big chunk" of land like this," said Carney."
I'm with Ms. Waterman on this one. While it's a good deal for TNC, it seems to be counter to voters original intent. Open space is meant to stay open space. First its a school, then a 'low impact" housing development. Next will be a shopping mall that enhances the tax base. Again, it goes back to the meaning of perpetuity. Does that mean forever, or just until our needs change. If that's the case, what's the point of having a land trust at all?

Want a ranch of your own?

2005-07-12T20:59:00.000-05:00

New West has an article on a New Mexico rancher who faces a dilemma. B.W. Cox wants to keep his 30,000 acre Montosa ranch around for future generations, but the immediate future has no interest in ranching. Cox has placed the entire ranch under a conservation easement, and the provisions allow for selling five to seven 640 acre homesites. But there's a catch...
B.W.’s land was appraised at millions of dollars. With the easement, the appraisal is nearly half (still in the millions), but the land stays as it is, in perpetuity, B.W.’s children have a lesser inheritance tax burden, and five very lucky people will get to live here, in some of the most striking country in the world, next door to an elk preserve and the national forest, under the hawks, among the coyotes and cinnamon bears and in the shade of the ponderosas.
The homes are carefully mapped into the landscape, to preserve the open space, the views, archeological sites, elk habitat, and B.W.’s grazing land. His cows will continue to run on the open spaces, and you can’t fence any of your lot except the ten-acre homesite. The rest remains open. Houses need to be modest. There are night sky restrictions. The covenants are carefully written.
But for the whole thing to work, they’ve got to sell the lots. The partners don’t stand to make a dime, after you factor in the legal costs, the real estate agent’s commission and so forth, but for B.W.’s kids, and for the land, they need buyers.
Takers, anyone? Check out the entire article at New West.

Conservation by Invitation

2005-07-11T18:57:00.000-05:00

The White House is having a national conference on conservation.... but it's an invitation only affair. The White House Conference on Cooperative Conservation will be held in St. Louis on August 29, 30 & 31st. It's a shame it's not open to a wider audience, because the agenda looks interesting. Participants will look at case studies ranging from urban efforts to rural. Even if you are not an invited participant, you can add a case study that could be added to the agenda. Go to Cooperative Conservation America. The stated reason for the conference is a Presidential Executive Order which directs Federal agencies that oversee environmental and natural resource policies and programs to promote cooperative conservation in full partnership". There's no indication on who has been invited, but the exhibitor's page promises that this historically significant conference offers exhibitors an opportunity to engage with key decision makers in organizations throughout the country. Designed as an invitation only conference to bring together the leaders in environmental conservation policy, this conference is sure to bring value to both the attendees and exhibitors. Since 1908 this is only the fourth time in America’s history that the White House has held an environmental conference. Conference attendees will be making suggestions for the advancement of cooperative conservation. Sounds like quite the deal.

Lost Woodpeckers & other oddities

2005-07-08T07:02:00.000-05:00

Update time on the Mid-South's(that's what we TV types call the Greater Memphis area) most famous elusive celebrity since Elvis. An independent radio team has put together a fun story for NPR's All Things Considered on the Ivory Billed Woodpecker hype going on in Brinkley, Arkansas. You can get to the story on NPR, and as an added bonus there's even a song about the woodpecker!
If you've been getting any updates from The Nature Conservancy you know that TNC is using the discovery of the woodpecker as a major fundraising tool. Our local alternative weekly, the Memphis Flyer has a good article (it won't be online until this weekend) out this week on why TNC deserves a good deal of the credit for the discovery.... describing how TNC Arkansas state director Nancy DeLamar spent six years working to preserve the area the bird was found in, and even coming up with the name for the area, the "Big Woods" (which the article notes is a lot better than the previously proposed White River-lower Arkansas River megasite). But one detail I didn't know was that before TNC even had a state office in Arkansas, a coalition of environmentalists and local duck hunters were able to stop a Corps of Engineers plan that would have drained the swamp. Working together, they saved a bird they didn't even know existed.

The Libertarian View

2005-07-04T18:30:00.000-05:00

A discussion has sprung up at Coyote Blog on some of the recent problems at the Nature Conservancy highlighted here. The post and comments are worth checking out. Thanks for the plug!

Buying Colorado

2005-07-04T16:33:00.000-05:00

One of the nation's largest land trust funding organizations, GOCO, which stands for Great Outdoors Colorado, is catching flak for relying primarily on easements as it spends the proceeds from the state lottery. The Rocky Mountain News reports that one state legislator says the board which controls GOCO is spending its money on easements because it has an aversion to acquiring land that would be publicly owned.
"They have broken faith with the voters by de-emphasizing acquisition of land," said state Sen. Dan Grossman, D-Denver. "They don't like the idea of the state holding title to land. If you're not acquiring land, there's no reason to use bonding."
GOCO officials dispute Grossman's characterization. They say they have preserved thousands of acres in the past year and GOCO still will have the capacity to issue bonds in the future. ....."We went through a tremendous amount of work to take care of the most urgent needs in the state," GOCO executive director John Swartout said. "In the Laramie foothills, we were able to buy 50,000 acres (with) cash. We preserved our ability to use that bond funding if we need it."................
"When the voters passed GOCO, they thought it was for the acquisition of land," said state Rep. Tom Plant, D-Nederland. "That's the way it was presented. The people felt they were acquiring land for public use and preservation. Conservations easements can take a number of forms, many of which completely exclude the public."
Grossman said that a preference for conservation easements reflects a hostility toward the public ownership of land on the part of many -GOCO board members, who are appointed by the governor.
"They'd rather see conservation easements," Grossman said. "It reflects the philosophy of the administration."
But Dan Hopkins, spokesman for Gov. Bill Owens, said that Owens has never opposed the purchase of land.
"GOCO has acquired a fair amount of open space during the governor's tenure," Hopkins said. "The governor leaves those decisions to the GOCO board."
Swartout said that GOCO is simply trying to preserve as much land as it can and that using conservation easements makes sense. Paying for a conservation easement is much cheaper than buying property, and Swartout says that much more land can be protected from development that way. He doesn't disguise his annoyance at the criticism of GOCO.
"These politicians are sitting in Denver, making speeches, and we're using the tools that work to preserve land in this state," he said. "Sometimes it's fee title (land purchase), and sometimes it's conservation easements."
No one disputes that GOCO is spending money. Now it may actually know what it has spent all those lotto dollars on. The Rocky also reports GOCO will spend $200,000 to fund a mapping project by Colorado State University's Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory to build a comprehensive map of all the lands now being preserved.
In all, 27 cities and nine counties in Colorado have some kind of open space acquisition program. There are also dozens of land trusts working around the state. They arrange for ranchers and farmers to sell off the development rights to their land, known as "conservation easements." They can keep working the land, and the public can enjoy the wide-open vistas that for many people define Colorado"
The project is expected to take two years.

Seeing the Forests

2005-06-29T19:43:00.000-05:00

Something about a miserably hot, humid day here in Memphis that makes me think of the cool shade of a quiet forest. So, some forestry news to mull on while dreaming of cooler days.... Two Southern environmental groups and one of the South's largest timber companies have announced a deal to protect the forests of the Cumberland Plateau of central Tennessee. The accord is between the Dogwood Alliance,the Natural Resources Defense Council and Bowater. According to the press release...
The agreement with Bowater - the largest newsprint manufacturer in the U.S. - will change the way the company does business and serve as a model for all other paper companies operating in the South.
"This is a major win for hundreds of communities throughout Tennessee and the South that have been living with the impacts of paper production for generations and have been calling for change," said Danna Smith, Policy Director for Dogwood Alliance. "We believe that other paper companies can and must follow Bowater's lead."
Highlights of the accord include:
• Bowater will end conversion of natural hardwood forests to pine plantations on all the land it owns in the United States within three years. Such conversions recently have totaled approximately 500 acres per year.
• Bowater will stop buying from third-party land owners pine fiber converted from natural forestland to pine plantations after 2007. The phase out will take place over the next three years.
• Bowater will expand its buffer zones during aerial applications of herbicides and fertilizers to a uniform 300 feet. The company will also formalize a public communication program of these activities.
• Bowater is in the process of studying approximately 7,000 acres of particularly sensitive areas (known as ‘gulfs and coves’) areas on its Tennessee lands to identify those of exceptional ecological, geological or historical significance. The company has committed to take appropriate measures to protect these areas as they are identified. While that study is underway, Bowater has agreed not to sell or harvest those areas.
Northwest News
Other innovative timber harvesting techniques are underway in the Pacific Northwest as well.
Ecotrust is using the power of private markets and federal incentives to try to change harvesting methods there. The group is using $50 million in Federal Tax credits to work with timber companies that have big tax burdens.
The tax credits will allow Ecotrust -- via its recently formed Ecotrust Forests LLC -- to provide investors a better return. Investors will be eligible to claim 39 percent of the amount placed with Ecotrust Forests in federal income tax credits over a seven-year period.
"An investment that doesn't at first offer market returns suddenly becomes viable" because tax credits provide gains for investors, said Stuart Cowan, an expert hired by Ecotrust to navigate the New Markets Tax Credit application process.
Ecotrust is a 14-year-old organization that seeks environmental conservation by employing a strategy called a "triple-bottom-line-oriented system" along the temperate rain forest of the West Coast. The system weights environmental stewardship and social equity with the economic bottom line.
Through the new organization, Ecotrust plans to purchase significant forest parcels along the western edges of California, Oregon and Washington in a range of sizes between 1,000 and 20,000 acres. Ecotrust will hire firms to manage the forests in each of the communities nearest its lands. .........."It is pretty tough to do this sort of thing for the kinds of money available through charitable grants and government funding. So we are going to capital markets," said Ecotrust President Spencer Beebe.Von Hagen said current trends in forest ownership emphasize economics to the detriment of the long-term health of timber towns and the environment. "The forest products industry is facing intense global competition in terms of new products from plantations in fast-growing, low-cost regions. As a result, there is a huge transition of forests from corporate ownership," she said.........imber investment organizations, known as "Timos," are purchasing a growing number of those lands to provide investors strong, relatively short-term returns. Forest land holdings in the United States owned by Timos are valued at roughly $15 billion. They typically work by logging and reselling property within about a decade. "Timos certainly aren't thinking very long term," said Grant Munro, president of Port Angeles, Wash.-based Munro LLC. "Ecotrust is taking a very novel approach. It is much like the industry used to do. And it is a way to get investors to put money into commercial timberland, operate with a lower project return and yet get investors the same return they might have been hoping for," he said.Ecotrust wants to whittle the amount of lands left vulnerable to investors seeking short-term returns. When forests are managed in a time-frame of at least several decades, von Hagen said, a variety of revenue streams can be established. When a forest is selectively logged and clear cuts are avoided, larger, high-value trees can be steadily harvested for years.
"By engaging in long-term management for optimum forest health productivity, we think we can allow timberlands to generate a whole suite of products and services that will provide economic and social benefits to the local communities," von Hagen said.In addition, sources of revenue not typically cultivated by traditional forest owners also can boost returns. For instance, a growing number of corporations that emit carbon dioxide are looking to purchase carbon credits to offset pollution. "The long-standing controversy around forest management is that it does not create the most wealth, innovation or happiness," von Hagen said. "We could be creating a prosperous and wealth-building forest products industry and regaining the market position that Pacific Northwest forests should have in the world."

Ready for your briefing?

2005-06-28T07:16:00.000-05:00

If you're looking for deeper background on some of the most important issues facing the country, there's a new resource on line. Not only will you be more informed, you'll also know what your Congressman(woman) knows. Check out Open CRS, a new project that makes the reports produced by the Congressional Research Service available to the public. The site notes that taxpayers spend over $100 million a year to support Congress's own think tank, but until now, the general public hasn't had access to the fruits of their taxes. Among the recent reports are studies of Renewable Energy, Gasoline Prices and Energy Policy. Also available are some more esoteric topics, like the pro's and con's of building a nuclear bunker buster bomb. Over 8,000 reports and counting.

The Great Goose Easement

2005-06-26T15:50:00.000-05:00

There's a big swath of undeveloped land in southern Oregon that is being considered for a National Refuge status. The area is usually home to cattle and sheep, but a few times a year, it becomes a rest stop for Aleutian Geese. The problem? According to an article in the Ashland Mail Tribune "The New River Bottoms area is considered a critical layover location, possibly the last place the geese stop before returning to the Aleutians in the spring. The geese enjoy grazing among sheep, but they can cause damage to ranchlands and gobble huge swaths of grass meant for sheep and cattle. Ranchers can haze them out, but currently they just run the geese from one property to another. The easements essentially would pay landowners for temporarily housing these geese."This would provide habitat where they’re welcomed," Lowe says.
Rancher Rick McKenzie says he encourages such discussions.
"We have 50,000 geese during the spring these past few years, and they’ve cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars," McKenzie says. "It would be good to come up with some agreement where the geese can live with us, and we can live with the geese.
"I’m all ears," he says."
What's good for the Goose.....etc, etc.
The area sounds beautiful, and it's nice to hear the government wants to work with the landowners to create an area where nature and ranching can co-exist.
National refuge officials are taking comment on the proposed study through July 8. The agency plans to issue documents in October for public review and comment. A decision is expected in January. If created, the refuge boundaries would identify private lands on which the refuge service can negotiate either land sales or conservation easements. In these easements, landowners would get a one-time payment to keep their land available to wildlife. They are the most common agreement for private lands within the coastal refuge system, Lowe says. Each easement is settled individually with willing landowners only, and they remain forever tied to the property. Easements would be purchased as money becomes available, Lowe says. The proposal has generated concern among residents who believe there’s more to this than meets the eye. Lowe says he expects landowners to become more comfortable with the proposal when they look closer into it. "It can be kind of scary to some of them to see the federal government put a line around their property and say, ‘Don’t worry,’ " Lowe says.A national refuge in the New River area would guarantee usable habitat for dozens of species, including federally protected birds such as threatened snowy plovers and endangered California brown pelicans.
Here's a a link to Google's Satellite Map of the area

Panel on Nonprofits Releases Report

2005-06-23T11:13:00.000-05:00

The "Panel on the Nonprofit Sector" has released its report on ways to toughen regulations on charitable organizations. The entire PDF can be downloaded here.
The Senate Finance Committee has been waiting for this report before pressing forward with new legislation.
When it comes to regulating conservation easement donations, the panel is recommending:
-Strengthen the definition of a qualified appraisal and a qualified appraiser.
-Expand penalties on taxpayers who claim inflated donations
-Impose penalties on appraisers if the appraisal exceeds the correct value of the property by 50% or more
-Mandate electronic filing, and require the donor to complete information on the appraised value before the charity can say that it has received the property.
-Enact laws allowing that deductions for easements can be reduced if the value of surrounding properties owned by the donor or his/her relatives increases because of the donation.
-Allow donations only to qualified charities with a primary purpose of environmental protection that "has a commitment and the resources to manage and enforce the easement restrictions with appropriate procedures for certifying that a charity meets this definition".
- Impose penalties on charities that fail to enforce easements, with a waiver available when a change in conditions on surrounding property makes it impossible.
- The IRS should require charities to certify annually on its Form 990 that it has established written procedures for monitoring easements and has adequate resources to enforce them.
- File a list of all donations of easements it holds, listing location, acreage, purpose of easement, year it was donated and whether it has been modified.

All in all, pretty sensible recommendations. It will require a professionalization of easement appraisals, and gives some teeth to rules against cheating. It will mean more paperwork for trusts, but it seems as though not any more than would be expected. A good organization should already have a database of existing easements, and be performing at least annual monitoring, so it should be able to keep up. And by giving the appraiser a 50% cushion, there's enough leeway so that appraisers won't be scared off from even attempting to handle easement business. It all seems like good advice.

Easements, The Next Step

2005-06-22T23:08:00.000-05:00

The posting from this past weekend about Land Choices made me wonder about the natural evolution of putting a conservation easement on a piece of land. Once you donate or sell the easement, and the time comes to sell the property, what happens next? Is it sold through a regular real estate agent? It certainly can be sold that way, but a number of organizations are popping up that specialize in selling easement protected property. Land Choices links to one of them, American Conservation Real Estate. It specializes in selling ranches in Montana and Wyoming with easements. The idea behind it is to link up conservation minded buyers (with some pretty deep pockets, judging by the prices) with sellers. That way you avoid the confusion of a buyer who thinks he's getting a great deal, only to discover that he can't subdivide that property to pay off some debts a few years down the road.
In Massachusetts, Land Base bills itself as a non-profit organization that has been formed by a consortium of land trusts to market easement property in that state. The Trustees of Reservations also advertises property with easements in Massachusetts.
Finally, the self-described mission of Defense of Place is to help local communities make sure that easements that are supposed to be held in perpetuity are actually held forever. It is focused mainly on parks. Here's part of the self-description on the website.
The question is one of permanence. What is our obligation to continue to preserve parks created by past generations? When we promise to preserve such spaces in perpetuity, how long is forever? How do we respond when the value of land has risen exponentially and the pressure for development increases? Will Americans be strong enough to stand up for our parks and open spaces, for wild rivers and wilderness? Is their value beyond and above money?
As long as "conservation minded" buyers can be matched with sellers, there shouldn't be a need for a Defenders program for private easement property, but I suspect that someday, probably sooner than later, the need will arrive.

A Defense from the West

2005-06-20T21:35:00.000-05:00

One of the things I like most about writing this blog is coming in contact with folks all over the country. Rob Bleiberg of the Mesa Land Trust wrote to say hi after I mentioned the 25th anniversary of the trust in an earlier post. Rob notes that anniversary celebrations will be going on through the summer and fall, but mainly wanted to point out a terrific editorial in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel defending conservation easement articles. The editorial notes the important work the Mesa Land Trust is doing there and how it has effectively used easements in Mesa county. The paper then lays out a concise and fair summation of the problems found nationally with easements so far, and urges Congress to make reforms but .......
"Per usual, Congress is considering both good ideas and bad ideas in its desire to curb the abuse of conservation easements. Among the bad ideas being bandied about Congress these days is a proposal to limit the tax deduction that a landowner can take for donating a conservation easement to just one-third of the full development rights of the property.
That’s precisely the wrong approach because imposing an artificially low limit on tax deductions would mitigate most strongly against the most valuable conservation easements, such as those used by ranchers to keep cattle growing on their property rather than condominiums.
What’s needed are clear-cut appraisal standards that are universally accepted by land trusts nationwide. Additionally, there is certainly a need for more transparency and public record-keeping and, if need be, more rigorous enforcement from the tax gendarmes at the Internal Revenue Service to lower the boom on anyone out to clearly scam the system.
Since their introduction a quarter century or so ago, conservation easements have helped protect critical wildlife habitat, open space and vital farm and ranch lands on more than 17,000 properties totaling more than 5 million acres nationwide.
Conservation easements serve an overwhelmingly vital public interest. Congress should be mindful of that as it goes about the necessary task of crafting circumspect ways to end abuses in the application of this vital conservation tool".
Absolutely right. I urge any trust to include this editorial in their arsenal of arguments when trying to make their elected officials and the general public aware of the importance of the easement deduction. Thanks, Rob, and enjoy the anniversary!

Land Choices Launches

2005-06-18T16:23:00.000-05:00

Here's an interesting new concept. The announcement of a new non-profit dedicated to increasing awareness of conservation issues nationwide, and of serving as a sort of MLS for properties being sold with conservation easements. The organization is called Land Choices. According to the website, the group's founder is Kirt Manecke. It says he was previously Executive Director for a Northern Michigan Land Trust. He's asking conservation groups to add a link to his site on their websites to help drive traffic.
The site has a page listing conservation land for sale. It's in the early stages, but it makes sense to promote these properties nationwide. It hadn't even dawned on me that there would be a need for a marketplace like this. But one key to marketing is knowing your market. What better way to sell conservation land, than to people with an interest in conservation. But just because the value has dropped because of the easements, it doesn't mean the property is cheap. Check out some of the listings. And if you're interested, make sure you've been saving up in the piggy bank for a while. It's a really interesting idea, I'll be intrigued to see how it goes. And in the spirit of helping spread the word, I've added the link on the blogroll.

Hitting the Lottery

2005-06-17T21:01:00.000-05:00

Different states with lotteries use their money in various ways. Here in Tennessee lottery proceeds go to fund college scholarships and soon, a pre-kindergarten program. In Colorado, the money goes for conservation. Among the latest to hit the lottery is Mesa County, in the western part of the state. The Daily Sentinel of Grand Junction details the latest award.
Mesa County received $422,000 from Great Outdoors Colorado for the county’s community-separator program.
The money will be used for conservation easements on 65 acres of working agricultural land in close proximity to other lands already under conservation easements prohibiting their development. Three parcels will be covered under the grant.
The award brings to $3.1 million the amount of Colorado Lottery funds contributed to the community-separator project and was among $3.5 million awarded to projects in western Colorado on Wednesday. Great Outdoors Colorado awarded $8.2 million around the state, bringing the total contributions for fiscal year 2005 to $97 million.
Mesa county isn't the only entity conserving land there. In fact, one of the older trusts in the country is already operating there. The Mesa Land Trust is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. Happy birthday.

Oregon update

2005-06-15T21:30:00.000-05:00

Interesting story from High Country News that indicates the big change in land use laws in Oregon doesn't seem to be having too much of an effect.
Measure 37 says that if land-use regulations diminish the value of property by limiting development, the regulating agency must either pay the owner for the lost value, or waive the rules and allow new development. Its passage has led to about 1,000 claims from landowners who say county and state governments need to pay up or butt out. The most notable claims come from around the Willamette Valley, in the high desert around Bend, and near the fast-growing town of Hood River in the Columbia Gorge.
But there apparently hasn't been the land rush some feared.

Enlightening Enlibra

2005-06-15T06:59:00.000-05:00

Not having spent too much time around western Governors, I hadn't heard of the word "enlibra" before. Turns out I'm 7 years behind the curve (ain't that the truth). According to this citation in Wordspy, enlibra has been kicking around for a while.
Enlibra. That word isn't in the dictionary, at least not yet. After all, it was just introduced to the world on Monday.
Conservative Republican Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt and liberal Democratic Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber coined it together hoping it will eventually revolutionize environmental debates.
"Enlibra is a word we made up," Leavitt explained to a gathering of reporters at the National Press Club — after a full day of talking to reporters for magazines and national newspapers in New York City and Washington about it.
"It is from two Latin phrases: 'en,' to direct toward; and 'libra,' to find balance. Our purpose then in putting forward enlibra is to find a symbol for the middle" and balance in environmental debates, Leavitt said.
—Lee Davidson, "Coined word aims to bring balance to wilds issue," Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah), July 14, 1998
Don't you love being dragged along on my education process?
But as in most words coined by politicians, it has become political.
The most important question to be considered in Senate hearings, however, is the intent and potential impact of what Leavitt calls his "enlibra" principles, which call on the federal government to give more leeway to states and industries on environmental issues.
Are those principles intended to allow locally designed solutions, or to weaken federal laws that defend against pollution that knows no state boundaries? Is "enlibra" just a fancy name for coming down on the side of industry, or is it truly a collaboration that lends equal weight to the views of environmentalists and the public —- the folks who can't buy their way into Beltway circles?
—"Judge EPA nominee on his record," The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, August 21, 2003
I like the latter definition. We certainly need more of that.

Enlibra in the West

2005-06-14T21:16:00.000-05:00

Supporters of "free market environmentalism" might want to take note of the resolutions unanimously adopted by the Western Governor's Association. One of the resolutions is summarized by the press release from the conference as supporting -- Conservation easements and other voluntary, incentive-based methods for preserving open space and maintaining land and water for agricultural and timber production, wildlife and other values. Sponsors: Govs. Bill Owens (Colo.), Napolitano, Richardson, Jon Huntsman (Utah) and Christine Gregoire (Wash.)
Check out the full text of the resolution titled Principles for Environmental Management in the West.
The resolution includes this passage The Western Governors renew their commitment to the Enlibra principles to guide natural resource and environmental policy development and decision-making in the West. Enlibra is a newly created word meaning balance and stewardship.. Enlibra sounds more like an on-line bookseller to me, but I like the meaning taken here.

Taking Notice

2005-06-14T20:45:00.000-05:00

Two western newspapers have taken notice of the conservation easement debate and the impact it would have on their respective states. The Rocky Mountain News notes In Colorado, 915,000 acres are covered by conservation easements, according to a survey just completed by the Colorado Conservation Trust, a Boulder-based nonprofit focused on preserving open lands.
The easements have helped to preserve some of the sweeping views that drew people to Colorado in the first place. In the Roaring Fork Valley, where development pressures have intensified with skyrocketing land values, Mike and Kit Strang donated conservation easements on much of their 450-acre horse ranch near Carbondale.
"It's 100 percent visible from a public road and has big vistas," said Martha Cochran, executive director of the Aspen Valley Land Trust, the state's oldest such group.
The Strang Ranch is among the remaining working ranches in a valley that has increasingly succumbed to subdivisions.
"It's one of the main productive, prosperous ranches," said Cochran, whose group managed the deal. "You can't just have one left."
Colorado alone has 42 land trusts, many of which report that the trend toward conservation easements has grown rapidly since the state began offering donors tax credits, which can be sold to raise cash.
That has proved a boon to land-rich but cash-strapped ranchers who want to stay on their land but wouldn't benefit much from taking an income tax deduction when they donate an easement.
It's a similar situation in Wyoming, so says the Casper Star Tribune. The article quotes land trust leaders as saying the easements are vital to preserve land there... and includes this..
U.S. Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., a member of the Finance Committee, said after the hearing he was inclined to agree.
"Obviously there have been some actions taken by groups and individuals that have raised concerns and called conservation easement usage into question," Thomas said in a written statement. "As with any charity, receiving special tax considerations requires a group to withstand public scrutiny and be held to the letter of the law. What we learned today is that curbing abuse may be more of a question of enforcing existing law than imposing new requirements."
Wednesday's hearing focused on a range of concerns. Many involved The Nature Conservancy, the world's largest environmental group and the subject of a two-year investigation by the committee's staff. Others centered on individuals and smaller charities that allegedly manipulate conservation laws to generate large tax deductions.
In Wyoming, conservation easements arranged by The Nature Conservancy protect 239,956 acres. The Jackson Hole Land Trust, meanwhile, has used the tool to protect more than 20 percent of the private land in Teton County -- property that today has a combined market value of nearly $700 million, Lindstrom said.
Thomas said any reform efforts should consider the purpose of conservation easements, improve the appraisal process, and promote greater accountability among land trusts.
"I will continue to talk with Wyoming groups and my colleagues in the Finance Committee to find a reform plan for these kinds of tax treatments," the senator said. "Conservation easements are not a tool favored by all landowners, but we ought not take this instrument away from folks who may want to use them to keep their lands involved in agriculture."
Thomas is noteworthy because he is not only a western Republican Senator on the Finance committee, but because he is not one of the senators who signed the letter supporting easements before the hearings. That's one more indication the easements will stay, with modifications.

Other Land Trust Voices

2005-06-13T19:00:00.000-05:00

It's been fun to watch the hits on the site in recent days, as lots of people who are interested in the Senate hearings have checked in, directed by the nice folks at sites that are used to having actual readers, like Grist Mill, The Commons and The Uneasy Chair. Another fun aspect is that people who are doing similar things have reached out. For instance, did you know there is an online radio station dedicated to all things environmental? It's called Radio Ecoshock. It's run out of Canada by Alex Smith, who was nice enough to include a synopsis of my Grist Mill essay. (One small quibble Alex, it's Nature Noted, not Nature's Notepad.... although that's probably a better name). Radio Ecoshock has podcasts and a looping netcast that includes music and environmental news.
Also Oliver Bass with the Natural Lands Trust in Pennsylvania wrote to let me know his organization has started three regular blogs to update news from three of their protected areas. The blogs cover the Crow's Nest Preserve, Mariton Wildlife Sanctuary, and the Southern New Jersey preserves. It's a great idea that every trust should consider.

Another view

2005-06-13T09:49:00.000-05:00

Gary Jones, the contrarian that he is, takes some thoughtful exceptions to a few of my conclusions on the effectiveness of trusts. Check it out over at Muck & Mystery

The Grist Mill Essay

2005-06-11T09:43:00.000-05:00

For those of you who missed it at Grist Mill, here's the entire post on why I think the recent hearing on easements deserves more coverage.

One of the most successful environmental movements of the last fifty years is about to change the way it does business. And if it doesn’t do it on its own, the government will step in and force it to change.
That’s the headline on the recent investigation of the nation’s land trusts by the Senate Finance Committee.
Wednesday, the Finance Committee held hearings ostensibly aimed at tightening the tax code on the use of conservation easements, which has become a prime tool in conserving land from development. It’s also become a prime tool for evading taxes. The Finance Committee began its investigation three years ago after a series of embarrassing articles in the Washington Post about the practices of the country’s biggest trust, The Nature Conservancy.
The staff released the results of its investigation Tuesday, outlining a series of abuses by TNC, including:
*A pattern of dealings with insiders that gave preferential treatment on land deals.
*A pattern of dealings with the companies of board members
*Selling emissions credits, including a $10 million deal with General Motors while GM’s chairman John Smith served on TNC’s board.
*Selling emissions credits that it may or may not have even owned, essentially furthering its own environmental goals (buying land) at the expense of another environmental goal (reducing greenhouse gases)
*Allowing oil and gas drilling on one of three known habitats of the Attwater Prairie chicken, bumbling its way through the deal so that it ended up in court, accused of cheating one of its partners, all while pocketing over $8 million in royalties.
The report paints a picture of an organization that had gotten so big, and so successful, that it lost sight of why it was formed in the first place. To its credit, TNC leaders know they needed to make some big changes and appear to have done so, although there are still questions about whether the new safeguards are as effective as they can be. Also the report breaks out just how wealthy TNC has become. At the end of fiscal year 2004, it had gross receipts of $2.5 billion with revenues of $732 million.
But TNC isn’t the only reason the Senate began investigating. It has become clear that some people have been abusing the law that allows tax deductions for conservation easements. The easement deduction allows me to sell the development rights to my property to a land trust. I keep the property the way it is, and everyone who buys it from me agrees to keep it that way too. If it’s wilderness, it stays wilderness. If it’s a ranch, it stays a ranch. In areas with lots of development, that can be worth a ton of money. The big question, how much? It’s a subjective appraisal, and if both parties want to unfairly jack up the value, the hearings have shown the IRS doesn’t have the manpower to catch it. And it’s led to a cottage industry in easement tax shelters, including millions of exemptions for golf courses, driving ranges and backyards. Phony trusts were set up not to protect land, but to act as tax shelters for the wealthy. As the facts come out, it’s outraging critics, and depressing supporters.
There’s also the unfairness of the tax code. I can only write off the amount of the deduction against what I earn. If I’m a small rancher just getting by, the deduction isn’t worth nearly as much as if I’m a millionaire who keeps the ranch for weekend getaways.
And the investigation highlighted the difficulty in monitoring the easements. They are donated in perpetuity. That’s a long time. Is the supervising trust making sure the land stays the same, and new owners haven’t bulldozed a big section for a new pool? Will they have the stomach for a legal fight if the contract is violated 10, 20 or 100 years from now?
So why not just kill the easement deduction? That’s what the Joint Senate Committee essentially proposed earlier this year sending land trusts into a panic. Trust leaders say that it would, instead, kill the movement. Easements are effective because they allow land to stay in private hands, and give the trusts more bang for their buck. Far fewer acres would be conserved, and smaller trusts simply wouldn’t have the money to even exist. Fewer landowners would be willing to donate their property. More land would go to development.
Land trusts that have played by the rules have been unfairly tarred by the abuses. But the damage is done. The consensus is that in order to keep the easement deduction, and to stay in business, trusts will have to agree to reforms. The Land Trust Alliance has proposed an accreditation system that is going to mean tougher standards, more paperwork and stronger monitoring. It’s institutionalize or die. And many trust members have debated whether it’s not better to just pack it in. They argue the reforms are going to rip the soul out of their organizations. Most are small, predominately volunteer groups, staffed by people who love their local land. They got into this to save a particular patch of ground that means something to them. They didn’t get into it to become a bureaucrat. There’s also an outrage that they’ve done nothing wrong, but now they are being viewed as tax cheats, out to help the rich and big corporations. But it’s clear to most that the freewheeling days of a bunch of like-minded individuals getting together to save some land is over. The days of the IRS forms, staff accountants and lawyers are here.
So why should anyone else in the environmental community care? First, land trusts work, they’ve conserved over 9 million acres of privately held land, 5 million of those acres were preserved through easements. Most importantly, they enjoy broad political support. You won’t find many organizations that do as much environmental good that are supported by conservatives and liberals alike. Bottom line, trusts work. And if it hadn’t been for an intensive lobbying campaign by the LTA and other conservation leaders, and a deep reservoir of goodwill, trusts faced at the very least, the loss of their most effective tool. At the worst, it would have meant the end of many trusts. And that would have been the real crime.