Solution: Save Rare Species

Posted: 01-Dec-2001; Updated: 28-Dec-2006

Farming has a huge impact on wildlife. Farms provide critical habitat for a wide variety of wildlife species, including hundreds considered endangered or threatened by federal and state officials. Many farmers are working with federal experts to protect and restore wildlife habitat on farmland by restoring native grasslands, fencing livestock away from riverbanks, and restoring lost wetlands and riverside plants.

Unfortunately, the federal government has not provided nearly enough support for farmers seeking to protect and restore wildlife habitat. Modern farming practices threaten one-third of the nation's rare wildlife species, and habitat loss caused by farming has reduced wildlife populations more than any other human activity.

Right now, Congress spends almost $1.75 billion a year on programs to create and protect buffer zones, wetlands, forests, and grasslands on environmentally sensitive lands. But almost all of these funds offer farmers only temporary contracts of ten years through the Conservation Reserve Program. Not only is this habitat potentially lost after ten years, but the time frame does not justify the more expensive and ambitious efforts at habitat restoration necessary to achieve many of the country's conservation priorities, including habitat needed by endangered species.

More on how agriculture threatens wildlife.

Congress has a great opportunity in the next Farm Bill to greatly enhance efforts by ranchers, forest landowners, and farmers to protect and restore rare species.

Congress should expand the Conservation Reserve Program from its present 36.4 million acres to 42-45 million acres. In doing so, Congress should reserve nine million acres of the program for the highest value enrollments, including buffers, wetland restoration, rare and native habitat and other lands identified by states through Conservation Reserve Enhancement Programs. Farmers enrolling in these high value practices should have the option of choosing a permanent easement instead of just ten to fifteen year contracts. Up to five million acres in total should be eligible for enrollment as permanent easements (or 30 year easements where states prohibit permanent easements), with a focus on those wetlands otherwise at greatest risk of loss. Congress should also change policies that have limited the program's utility in many states. For example, it should be possible to enroll riparian pasture lands not just in trees, but also in wetlands or shrubs where enrollment of the land would help enhance water quality and natural vegetation. The CRP program should also be amended to make it useful for haying and grazing lands where the land could provide critical habitat for rare species if haying and grazing were stopped or other conservation measures were implemented. Congress should also establish a program to enroll five million acres of grass and ranchlands in permanent preservation easements, targeting lands with predominantly native vegetation of critical wildlife importance.

In the next Farm Bill, Congress should boost to $500 million per year the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP), the federal incentives program for wildlife habitat restoration on private lands. Congress should also focus those incentive payments on the restoration of rare species habitat and reward the use of innovative restoration practices. Today, only ten percent of federal payments for habitat restoration benefits threatened and endangered species.

There are many ways farmers can protect wildlife habitat on their land - prescribed burns of restored grasslands, riparian and wetland restoration, aquatic habitat restoration, restoration of large stands of longleaf pine, and control of exotic species. Restoring native grasslands on private lands benefits a wide variety of rare species, ranging from the bobwhite quail to the swift fox to the Karner-blue butterfly. By delaying harvest of grasslands for hay, farmers can aid a wide variety of rare birds.

Riparian restoration serves many needs - such as regulating stream temperatures for endangered trout, contributing organic debris to streams, and providing spawning habitat for some rare fish species. The removal or modification of small dams, creation of forested buffers along rivers, and restoration of in-stream woody debris helps a wide variety of rare freshwater species, including endangered salmon and steelhead runs in the Pacific Northwest.

Wetlands provide critical habitat for a wide variety of rare species. Because about 90 percent of the nation's remaining wetlands are found on rural, private lands, farming plays a critical role in their health. About 70,000 acres of wetlands are converted for agricultural use every year. Although some wetlands are being restored, only ten percent of the nation's annually restored wetlands are found on agricultural lands.

Farmers can enhance habitat by restoring wetlands for many rare species, from salmon in the Pacific Northwest to woodstocks and panthers in southern Florida. At least a third of all endangered species heavily depend on wetlands. Because farms dominate private landscapes, it is no surprise that farming has caused 80 percent of the country's wetland loss since colonial times. Many of these former wetlands are highly productive, but some are marginal because they continue to flood frequently, and these fields are particularly appropriate for restoration.

In nearly all cases, the same activities that enhance habitat for rare species benefit other wildlife species, including important game animals. Grassland enhancements will typically enhance pheasants and deer. And streamside buffers will often enhance trout Wetland restoration will enhance duck populations.

How farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners can protect wildlife habitat on their land

More information on WHIP:
FY'99 WHIP Activity Summary
WHIP State-By-State Information

Wildlife and Endangered Species Information:
Meet the Endangered Species
Endangered Species Coalition
US Fish and Wildlife Service, Endangered Species Program
Teaming With Wildlife
National Audubon Society Agriculture Campaign

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