By Eric Holst

On June 22, the Forest Service announced that there is a record 66 million dead trees in the southern Sierra Nevada. Credit: Kings Canyon National Park, California (license)

Scientists from the U.S. Forest Service estimate that as many as 26 million trees have died in the Sierra Nevada over the last eight months, creating a landscape at risk for massive wildfires.

Sierra Nevada forests require fire to maintain ecological integrity and periodic fires create patches of complexity that actually enhance biodiversity and ecosystem integrity. But tree mortality at this level creates an immediate risk to human communities and plant communities.

Why are trees dying?

Changes in weather that stress trees or exacerbate other stressors like bark beetle infestations are driving the current wave of tree mortality. Temperatures are increasing at a faster rate at higher elevations and precipitation patterns are changing. Specifically, more precipitation is falling as rain and less as snow, which leads to faster runoff and less percolation into the soil. And despite a relatively wet winter, California is still locked into its fifth year of drought.

These dynamics have been particularly acute in the southern Sierra Nevada, where precipitation continues to be below normal. Tree mortality is highest in the southern part of the range as seen in this map.

So what can we do about this?

1. First, we need to get comfortable with fire

Wildfires have become increasingly common throughout the West as temperatures rise and landscapes dry out. Credit: Fire (license)

Fire has always been a force in shaping Sierra Nevada forests and always will be. Fire dynamics will be very different under a changing climate, but eliminating fires altogether is not a practical option.

We should be thinking, instead, about managing Sierra Nevada forests with fire in ways that protect human communities and enhance ecosystem services to the maximum extent possible, given changing trends in weather and climate.

1. We need more burning

That’s right: we must combat fire with fire. Strategically thinning and burning forests will help this ecosystem avoid larger, catastrophic fires.

A considerable body of science exists to help managers make intelligent choices about which trees to remove, which to leave, and in which pattern. But thoughtful, science-based management requires investment in strategically thinning and prescribing burning of forests to remove hazardous fuels from the forest.

Smart investment strategies can insure that some portion of the fuel removed from the forest is put to use in generating heat and electricity. For example, Placer County has proposed development of a woody biomass electricity plant to be fed by the bi-products of restoration treatments. More importantly, the Forest Service needs more funds to invest in building resilience in Sierra Nevada forests. Many of these funds are currently diverted to combat wildfires, which does not get at the source of the problem.

1. Leave some dead trees

We can’t possibly afford to take all of the dead trees out the Sierra and treat every acre. Standing dead trees and fallen trees, after all, provide tremendous value for many invertebrates, birds and mammals. They are an essential component to any restoration plan.

The trick is to manage the fuel load in a forest to limit high severity fire. Doing so requires the input of highly trained foresters and requires finding the right balance between leaving some dead wood and removing enough to diminish the risk of high severity fire.

1. Change how we talk about fire

Not all high severity fire is a “catastrophe.” You will hear talk of catastrophic fire. I have used that term myself in the past. But gaining comfort with fire requires that we get comfortable with the fact that very hot fires will occur throughout the Sierra. They always have.

That being said, the fuel loads present in Sierra forests today are a legacy of forest management decisions over the past 150 years that have left the ecosystem more vulnerable than ever.

We have an obligation to apply human ingenuity and science through smart management choices. One such choice would be to prioritize fuel treatments to minimize high severity fire, particularly in low and mid elevation forests.

1. Improve post-fire management

Credit: National Guard (license)

An eminent group of scientists produced a seminal report in 2009 entitled An Ecosystem Management Strategy for Sierran Mixed Conifer Forests. The report helped generate significant consensus on how to manage Sierra forests to mitigate fire risks and promote ecosystem integrity. But no such report has been written about how to manage Sierra forests after fire.

Much research is required, and the science community should assemble itself soon to synthesize the best available science on this issue.

Fire will continue to occur with great intensity and frequency, and I worry that the current fuel load will result in significant high severity fire in the coming fire seasons. Forests managers are hungry for more information on how to help ensure that Sierra forests continue to provide a wide suite of ecosystem services for many years to come, and post-fire management is an essential piece of the solution that is currently lacking.

With these five lessons in mind, I hope that we can adjust fire management practices and cultures so that people looking back 150 years from now can say we changed the way we live with fire for the better.

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My quest to balance nature and the agricultural economy >>

By Eric Holst

Lesser prairie-chicken. Photo credit: USDA NRCS

A few years ago, I was invited by Texas farmer David Cleavinger to visit his family’s farm near Amarillo. This was during a period of time when my organization, Environmental Defense Fund, was deeply involved in conservation efforts for the lesser prairie-chicken, a colorful bird whose habitat is in decline throughout its five-state range, which includes the panhandle of Texas.

David picked me up at the airport and asked if we could make a quick stop on the way to his farm. That stop turned out to be at local radio station KGNC, where David had arranged for me to go on air and talk about wildlife conservation with a particular focus on the local implications for efforts to revive the lesser prairie-chicken.

I agreed to join the show with some trepidation, but it quickly subsided as we got into a lively discussion with the host, James Hunt, and several listeners. Toward the end of my appearance, a caller asked a surprising and provocative question – What if God wants the prairie-chicken to go extinct?

I was briefly stymied. I found myself in a tricky spot: being asked to expound on God’s will for the lesser prairie-chicken. The caller had no idea about my faith and, while I’ve kept that faith relatively low profile during my career as a conservationist, I realized I had a great opportunity to outline my thoughts on environmental theology – a topic I’ve actually thought about quite a bit.

Protecting God’s creation

My view on this question is rooted in my Christian faith. A fundamental tenant of that faith holds that “God created the heavens and the earth” and that the earth reflects the genius of the creator.

The book of Genesis says that after God finished his creative process, he reflected on it and declared that it was “very good.” So the first principle of environmental theology rests in the reality that God created diversity of life, is responsible for the complexity of ecological dynamics and systems, and that they are “very good” and therefore worthy of protection.

Redemption for the planet

Photo credit: explored via photopin (license)

Another tenant of the Christian faith is that the earth and humanity are experiencing a sickness driven by sin. This sickness extends to our human-to-human relationships and also to our relationship with the earth.

But chronically broken human relationships and ecological devastation are not part of God’s plan for creation.

The narrative flow of the Bible tells the story of redemption – the story of how God, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, intends to restore perfect harmony in his creation. Romans chapter 8 says that the “whole creation has been groaning” and that “creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay.” This leads to a second principle of environmental theology, which holds that Christians have a responsibility to lead their lives and make choices that contribute to God’s purpose for redeeming his creation to himself.

Tending the garden

A third principle rests in the biblical concept of stewardship, which echoes throughout the scriptures.

A stewardship ethic requires that the freedom we have to exploit the earth must be balanced with the obligation to conserve.

Much has been made in certain Christian circles of God’s charge in Genesis for humans to have “dominion” over the earth. But the sweep of teaching in the scriptures points towards an ethic that has been called “creation care,” where our choices as humans are driven by a strong obligation to tend to the earth in ways similar to a gardener tending to his or her garden.

Choices made out of greed, selfishness or short-sightedness that lead to destruction of God’s creation work against God’s redemptive purpose.

Does this ethic prohibit use of the earth for human benefit? Without doubt, it does not. Land, water, air and other resources were provided to allow a rich life. But a stewardship ethic requires that the freedom we have to exploit the earth must be balanced with the obligation to conserve resources for future generations and to avoid irreversible harm, including extinction.

The fate of the lesser prairie-chicken

An active pumpjack in the Permian Basin east of Andrews, TX. Photo credit: Wiki Commons user Zorin09

With this Christian ethic in mind, I have committed myself to a career that serves to sustain God’s creation. One of the ways I strive to do this is to help prevent extinction of all species, including the lesser prairie-chicken.

Just last week, federal courts upheld a Texas ruling that stripped the chicken of its previous federal protection under the Endangered Species Act. The decision whether or not to list the bird has been a tumultuous and highly politicized ongoing drama.

That’s because this particular bird’s habitat is nestled smack in the middle of one of the highest energy rich regions of the United States – the Permian Basin. But which came first – the chicken or the oil rig? Would God rather we save jobs, or birds?

It’s trade-offs like these that make conservation a difficult task. I believe we can strike a balance between thriving human communities and environmental stewardship. Finding that balance makes this work incredibly challenging but rewarding when we get it right.

So, in the end, I told the caller my view that God does not want the lesser prairie-chicken to go extinct. I think he wants the lesser prairie-chicken to thrive. And I think he wants us all, particularly Christians, to take on a responsibility to prevent the loss of God’s creation.

Related:

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Lesser prairie-chicken numbers are up. Is it good conservation or just good weather? >>

Monarch butterflies get help from Texas ranch >>

By Eric Holst

Nearly two dozen Nevada landowners have already submitted letters of interest to generate conservation credits for sage-grouse through the exchange. Read more >>

For the first time ever, ranchers are able to enroll in a habitat credit exchange program to earn revenue for activities that protect and enhance habitat for the greater sage-grouse.

The state of Nevada and federal agencies today announced the approved use of the Nevada Conservation Credit System to protect the grouse’s sagebrush habitat on public lands.

This program will create a robust mitigation market that will bring greater certainty and transparency to the state’s agriculture and energy industries, ultimately allowing both sage-grouse and the economy to flourish.

About the Nevada Conservation Credit System

The Nevada Conservation Credit System is an advanced approach to protecting habitat for the greater sage-grouse that ensures impacts are fully offset in a way that helps create net benefit. It does so by creating new incentives for industries to avoid and minimize impacts, and for private landowners and public land managers to preserve, enhance, and restore habitat.

Nevada has committed $2 million to fund the first round of pilot projects, which will be awarded to land managers, namely ranchers, on private and public lands. Dozens of ranchers have already expressed interest in generating conservation credits through these pilots, which can eventually be sold as mitigation to industry buyers.

“The habitat exchange is a win-win for sage-grouse and for ranchers, who are natural stewards of these vital working landscapes.”

The credit system will ultimately provide regulatory certainty for industries by fulfilling compensatory mitigation needs.

The first, but not the last

Stakeholders conduct field tests for the Colorado Habitat Exchange on a ranch in Colorado.

The Nevada Conservation Credit System is an evolution of similar conservation programs under development in other sage-grouse states, like the Colorado Habitat Exchange, which was formally submitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service by Governor Hickenlooper in September 2015 – just before the “not warranted” listing decision.

In addition to Nevada, Colorado has been a strong leader in developing innovative conservation solutions that work for both wildlife and the economy. Approval of the Nevada credit system is a good sign that the Colorado exchange will soon be open for business as well.

“The sooner we can get federal recognition of the Colorado Habitat Exchange, the sooner we will be able to unlock new opportunities for Colorado ranchers to make sage-grouse conservation a part of their business models,” said Terry Fankhauser, executive vice president of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. “The habitat exchange is a win-win for sage-grouse and for ranchers, who are natural stewards of these vital working landscapes.”

In order to keep the greater sage-grouse off the endangered species list in the long run, there needs to be strong conservation and mitigation markets in place that can drive momentum on the ground quickly, in keeping with the promises made by the states.

Approval of the Nevada credit system paves the way for other states to lead on sage-grouse, ensuring a sustainable future for wildlife and for the western economy.

Related:

Nevada landowners eager to generate conservation credits, help sage-grouse >>

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Habitat exchanges: How do they work >>

By Eric Holst

2015 marked the end of a five-year drought, bringing relief to the parched prairie region. But climate impacts like drought and wildfires are only expected to increase in the future, threatening lesser prairie-chicken recovery efforts. Credit: Lesser Prairie Chicken via photopin (license)

Recent media reports have touted population rebounds for the lesser prairie-chicken – up 25 percent from last year. That’s great news for the bird, which was nearly wiped out in recent years as booming oil and gas industries encroached on the bird’s range across Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado and New Mexico.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the bird as “threatened” in March 2015, at the same time that the five states embarked on a conservation plan of their own. The plan was officially assembled and endorsed by the five members of the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA).

Now that bird numbers are up, WAFWA is claiming success – attributing the chicken’s rebound to effective implementation of their Lesser Prairie-Chicken Rangewide Conservation Plan (RWP). Certainly that program has provided some benefit, but the key question is whether the program has been a big enough boost to set the lesser prairie-chicken on a path to recovery.

Improvements needed

WAFWA continues to tout the number of acres enrolled in conservation agreements as evidence of their success. But this number does not correlate to the acreage of land protected or enhanced to benefit lesser prairie-chickens. It is rather the acreage that enrollees in the RWP (industrial developers like oil and gas companies) are likely to impact with development.

Read the latest on WAFWA's rangewide conservation plan for the lesser prairie-chicken in E&E. Credit: Tanks via photopin (license)

More clarity and detail is needed to understand precisely whether impacts from oil and gas drilling and other industrial infrastructure are being fully mitigated by the RWP.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe sent a memo to WAFWA in December raising these transparency and accounting concerns, writing that because WAFWA has still not created a database to track affected land and corresponding mitigation efforts, "the Service is unable to determine that the [rangewide plan] is offsetting the impacts to lesser prairie-chickens."

A better plan is needed to track both impacts and offsets to lesser prairie-chicken habitat to ensure success over the course of the next several years, when drought and wildfires are likely to return to the landscape.

What should this look like?

For starters, WAFWA should provide rigorous, transparent and quantifiable accounting of both the specific decline of habitat quality driven by energy and industrial development in the landscape, and the specific quantity and quality of offsetting conservation.

It should also take a hard look at integrating other compensatory mitigation approaches like habitat exchanges and conservation banks into its program to ensure that all options are available to landowners seeking to restore and maintain lesser prairie-chicken habitat on their land.

A lesson for the future

EDF has also work to build habitat exchanges for the greater sage-grouse, the golden-cheeked warbler and other at-risk wildlife.

Full disclosure: EDF has been a proponent of the Lesser Prairie-Chicken Habitat Exchange, a proposal that has taken a back seat to the RWP. But our critique is not just sour grapes. WAFWA is implementing a bold and innovative new model of conservation intended to provide states more control over the recovery of declining species.

If this model is to be replicated, the public has to have the capacity to understand which elements of the plan are delivering quantifiable benefit for the lesser prairie-chicken, and which require adjustments (or adaptive management) to deliver more benefits.

It’s critical that the public understand what proportion of the recent spike in population is due to acts of God (i.e. better weather) and which are due to successful implementation of conservation efforts.

As the feds look more frequently to the states to manage wildlife, it's imperative that states adopt plans that use the best science, maintain the highest level of transparency, apply rigorous accounting of impacts and improvements, and engage local landowners in ways that incentivize large landscape conservation. That’s the only way that states will be able to guarantee success and protect themselves from years-long court battles that too often delay conservation and waste taxpayers’ money.

Related:

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By Eric Holst

Earlier this week, The Washington Post reported that the monarch butterfly, along with the manatee, is on a “big rebound.” It’s true that the iconic North American butterfly is in better shape today than this time last year. But it's too soon to celebrate.

A sensitive species

The population of monarch butterflies has historically had drastic dips and spikes. That’s because the monarch is a sensitive species greatly impacted by extreme weather events.

In January 2002, the species experienced unprecedented and catastrophic mortality due to a rare freeze at its overwintering site in Mexico, killing an estimated 500 million butterflies. That’s more than two times the size of today’s population, even with this year’s boost.

Fortunately, the monarch is as resilient as it is delicate. This year’s bump in number proves that. It also shows that recovery is possible, that conservation efforts can make a difference.

Still, the general trajectory continues to point downward, with a 95 percent population decline in the last 20 years. No single good year can bring the butterfly back from the brink.

So how do we change the trajectory?

Milkweed has long found a foothold in both native prairie habitats and in disturbed habitats like roadsides, ditches, cemeteries, and even in the middle of cornfields.

Too often, the finger is pointed at farmers. That’s because much of the monarch’s former foothold resided in the cornfields and roadsides of America’s Corn Belt – a foothold that has disappeared due largely to increased use of herbicides in agriculture, which kills the milkweed that monarchs depend on for nectaring and breeding. But farmers are aware of this dilemma, and they are eager to help.

Since my team at Environmental Defense Fund announced plans to build a new conservation program for the monarch in January of this year, we’ve received dozens of emails from landowners all across the country who are interested in enrolling portions of their land in conservation.

The program is called a Monarch Butterfly Habitat Exchange. It works to provide incentives for farmers to restore and protect vital milkweed habitat on their property – allowing them to earn revenue from planting milkweed as they would for a crop.

By applying an advanced habitat assessment tool, the Monarch Butterfly Habitat Exchange can accurately determine the value of habitat on any given property and enable incentive payments to be directed to priority habitat restoration and conservation sites, ensuring maximum bang for the buck, and for the butterfly.

The butterfly's ally: Farmers

Read more about Brent Bible, state trooper turned farmer and mentor, in this blog.

Brent Bible is one of the farmers who reached out to us after reading about the exchange in Modern Farmer. He owns a 3,000-acre grain farm in Indiana, where he’s already adjusted on-farm practices to improve soil health and fertilizer efficiency.

“I just read about this program and became very excited,” Brent wrote in his email. “I'd love to work with you to grow milkweed on a portion of a new farm I purchased. There is about 6 acres of currently farmed land that we would like to put into pollinator habitat through the habitat exchange.”

“I think this could be a win-win-win opportunity – giving farmers a chance to bring in some additional funds to help support not losing their farm, engaging more farmers in agricultural sustainability, and ultimately helping the butterflies.”

Emails like this give me great hope for the monarch’s future.

Brent may be just one farmer in Indiana, but there are thousands of American farmers just like him all across the U.S. who are willing and ready to be a part of the monarch solution. With their help, I’m confident we can restore the habitat necessary to put the monarch on a more permanent path to recovery.

Related:

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Meet Brent Bible, state trooper turned farmer and mentor >>

By Eric Holst

California's Sutter Buttes are the remnants of a volcano that are sometimes called the "smallest mountain range in the world."

On a clear day I can see the Sutter Buttes, the smallest mountain range in the world, from my office in Sacramento. It’s a landscape that inspires me.

Although the Sacramento Valley is not without its problems, when I look out my office window, explore the local outdoors with my kids, or catch the woodsy whiff of a pencil made from California incense cedar (yes, I collect those), what I sense in those sights, sounds and smells is balance.

Striking the right balance in our working landscapes

The Sacramento Valley is a real working landscape. I use that term a lot: “working landscape.” By that I mean a place where natural resources are used to provide economic benefit – “working” to support jobs, industries and economies, both local and of scale – in a way that strikes a balance between maximizing profits and sustaining the natural resources, or the “landscape.”

Striking that balance between economic output and environmental protection has been a pillar of my work at EDF. I’ve long believed that if we can find and replicate this delicate mix everywhere, we’d be in much better shape.

Cooperation is key

Two former EDF colleagues of mine – Michael Bean (right), Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Department of Interior, and Robert Bonnie (middle), Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment at USDA – are both advocates of fostering the mutual appreciation for natural resources among farmers, ranchers and environmentalists, and creating policies that benefit all stakeholders. It is a philosophy I wholeheartedly embrace and strive to carry on in their legacies.

The media draw a lot of negative attention to the hostility and disagreements in our culture, pinning environmentalists against farmers and ranchers, for example.

That’s not my story. Nor is it the story that I have seen unfold over my career.

EDF’s approach to environmental solutions involves a great deal of collaboration. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve sat around a table with an industry representative on my left and a rancher on my right. Sure, sometimes the conversation gets a little weedy, but it is always a constructive dialogue – everyone sensitive to each other’s point of view.

As one of two environmental representatives on California’s Food & Agriculture Board, I appreciate the need for such open discussions. In that role, I wrestle to understand the best ways to enhance the environment in ways that work for farmers, ranchers and foresters, whose economic and ecological contributions to the state are incredibly valuable. I also advise government decision-makers by helping them understand the value to California agriculture of clean air, clean and abundant water, rich soils and thriving wildlife habitat.

Rallying around our common goals

Agriculture and environmental communities often share the same values, but get tied into knots when forced to takes sides, oftentimes in legal battles.

Most folks in rural America value abundant wildlife, clean water and fresh air. But they also want rules that make sense and that give them the ability to solve problems without complicated prescriptions from regulators who don't understand their land or their business.

If we can create social and political consensus around policies that reward people for providing ecological benefits, we’d be more likely to reach our common goals.

Protecting wildlife, and human life on earth

My colleagues and I are working with key partners in agriculture to develop a conservation tool for the monarch butterfly in the hopes of restoring essential habitat for the butterfly, which has seen a 90 percent population decline in the last two decades. Read my latest blog to learn more.

As I look to the future, my focus is on how to prevent the extinction of species, which is a critical indicator of the health of the planet. When you lose wildlife, you’re likely losing the vital natural resources also crucial to human survival.

Whether it’s making room for the greater sage-grouse to strut its stuff, or planting milkweed for the monarch butterfly to lay its eggs, we need to find a way to simultaneously protect wildlife and provide enough food, fuel and fiber to support human life on earth.

It’s not a question of the economy or the environment. We need both.

I will continue working to find that balance for each new species I encounter – each its own puzzle. Fortunately, I can find inspiration whenever I admire the landscape outside my office window.

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Ranchers and conservationists step up to avert listing of sage-grouse >>

By Eric Holst

Related: Ranchers and conservationists step up to avert listing of sage-grouse

A few months have passed since the greater sage-grouse was deemed “not warranted” for listing under the Endangered Species Act. But that doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten about the bird. Nor have the countless agency staff at the Department of Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Forest Service (FS) who continue to work to ensure that the bird stays off of the Endangered Species List.

The listing decision signaled that the state, federal and other conservation plans for the greater sage-grouse should be enough to ensure healthy populations, and now we must continue the hard work on implementing these plans.

BLM and FS have already committed to developing Regional Mitigation Strategies for the greater sage-grouse within one year of the September 2015 listing decision – a strategy that I hope will bring consistency, transparency and high standards to mitigation on public lands.

Protecting the 50%

Credit: www.fws.gov

Roughly half of greater sage-grouse habitat exists on federally managed lands, across 10 states. With a range this vast, the sage-grouse will require a high-level mitigation strategy – likely one of the largest and most robust mitigation plans to be put forth by federal land managers to date.

This strategy will need to take into account local and state needs, existing plans and ecological differences while ensuring consistent and high-quality mitigation across the species' range.

So what will this strategy look like, exactly? That’s still to be determined, but my colleagues and I have been hard at work developing a set of principles that we believe will create strong mitigation standards, allowing development on federal lands to continue while contributing efficient and effective investments in the greater sage-grouse.

To create a program that works for landowners, project developers and the bird, BLM’s Regional Mitigation Strategies should:

1. Strive for overall improvement in conservation outcomes by following the mitigation hierarchy and offsetting all residual impacts. By prioritizing avoidance of impacts first, followed by minimization, restoration and offsets, the strategy can ensure that the highest priority habitats are protected, and incentive structures can be applied to encourage stewardship and enhancement when impacts do occur. No net loss of sage-grouse habitat is the only way to ensure that populations do not decline, and protect against listing under the Endangered Species Act in the future.
2. Ensure compensatory mitigation fully offsets impacts over time (durability & duration). Agreements and assurances must be used to ensure that offsets are maintained throughout the length of time for which the impact occurs.
3. Ensure compensatory mitigation goes beyond business as usual and does not displace other conservation funding (additionality). To achieve the most per dollar invested, the standard for mitigation must ensure no double counting of a single conservation outcome.
4. Consistently apply high, equivalent standards for credits to ensure mitigation measures are completed as required. It is critical to have consistent standards for credits in the mitigation marketplace to attract market participants, track credit transactions and ensure success.
5. Apply offsets prior to impacts (advanced mitigation). Mitigation projects need to be in place before the impact occurs to avoid loss of habitat.
6. Ensure mitigation measures address landscape-scale conservation planning and objectives across the matrix of public and private lands. Sage-grouse habitat is found across the matrix of land ownerships in the West, so a landscape-scale approach addressing conservation needs on both private and public lands is essential to sage-grouse success. This will ensure that the market for mitigation expands to facilitate more transactions with greater efficiency and pace. This also guarantees consistent outcomes across the entire range.
7. Ensure offsets occur in a landscape-relevant proximity to the impact location. Offsets should be close enough to the population being impacted so as to be meaningful, while also taking into account habitat priority and the ability of the species to adapt to a shifting landscape.
8. Employ the same or comparable science-based habitat valuation for both the impacts and offsets associated with compensatory mitigation. Impacts and offsets must be measured using the same methodology to guarantee no net loss from mitigation.
9. Establish standard reporting for the outcomes associated with mitigation measures. Standard reporting creates more efficiency for market participants and agency staff. We need standard ways to measure progress across the landscape and participants.
10. Integrate adaptive management. It is critical to reassess mitigation standards over time to ensure success and adjust as needed. For example, as climate change brings more extreme weather (drought, wildfire) to the sagebrush landscape, we need built-in flexibility to be able to adjust standards as the habitat and species’ needs change.
11. Offer regulatory assurances to participants in mitigation measures in the event of a future species listing. To attract market participants, federal agencies must offer assurances that protect buyers and sellers from future regulatory requirements, should the species be listed.

Farmers and ranchers are critical to conserving greater sage-grouse habitat on both private and public lands.

Developing Regional Mitigation Strategies with these principles will be necessary to scale participation – attracting farmers, ranchers and forestland managers to the mitigation marketplace – and to ensure better performance to drive stronger outcomes across the landscape.

With strong standards for mitigation, we can keep the greater sage-grouse off the Endangered Species List and sustain the economic and environmental vitality of the West.

Related: 

Ranchers and conservationists step up to avert listing of sage-grouse >>

$2 million available for Nevada landowners to earn revenue through sage-grouse pilots >>

By Eric Holst

The eastern population of monarch butterflies overwinters in the forests of central Mexico, with the most prominent migration path following Interstate 35 from Amarillo Texas to Duluth Minnesota. (Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

As a kid growing up in northern California, I found myself migrating to the beaches and boardwalk of Santa Cruz (along with tens of thousands of other land-locked youth) to escape the sweltering inland heat each summer.

Now, as an adult more than a decade into my conservation career, I’ve come to learn that the monarch butterfly, one of America’s most well-known and beloved insects, is drawn to the same place, only during winter.

The western population of monarch butterflies spends their winters along the California coast, seeking the temperate climate and coastal forests the area offers. This overwintering habitat extends as far North as the San Francisco Bay Area and as far South as San Diego along the U.S.-Mexico border. But the highest concentrations occur in a handful of sites in and around Santa Cruz.

A few weeks ago, I paid a visit to my old summer stomping grounds to see this iconic North American butterfly.

First stop: Natural Brides State Park

Monarchs cluster in pine, cypress and non-native eucalyptus trees, flying about only when absolutely necessary to refuel and escape predators.

I wanted to catch a glimpse of the monarchs while they were in Santa Cruz this December, before they dispersed across the West – their flight paths dedicated to sustaining the next generations of their kind.

My first stop was at Natural Bridges State Park, where, quickly upon entering the park, I discovered a half dozen orange clusters of monarchs clinging tightly to branches in a protected eucalyptus grove. Scientists estimated that as many as 8,000 monarch visited this site at the peak just before Thanksgiving.

The weather was a chilly 50 degrees, a temperature too cold to allow the insects to take flight. Monarch butterflies are most active when temperatures exceed 60 degrees. They don’t fly at all when temps fall below 55 degrees.

Survival for the butterfly, whose population has declined 90 percent in the last 20 years, depends on producing enough offspring to counteract the forces of predation, disease, chemical exposure and habitat loss. (Credit: Monarch Watch)

While at the park, I met and chatted with Ron, an amiable retired biology teacher who serves as a volunteer docent at the park. He was concerned that a family of Steller’s jays had taken residence in the grove. These Steller’s jays were known to fly directly into the assembled butterflies in an attempt to scatter them from their protected clusters, occasionally feeding on the monarchs.

Ron pointed me toward an even bigger population of monarchs at a site a mile down the road near Lighthouse Point – a stone’s throw from the Santa Cruz surfer statue.

Temperatures had warmed a bit by the time I arrived at the spot, and the sun shone brightly on the face of a tall Monterey cypress tree covered with thousands of monarchs. The sun’s rays offered enough warmth to allow me to witness a few hundred butterflies take flight, flitting about aimlessly (or at least that’s the way it looked to me). Nonetheless, it was a remarkable sight.

Next stop: milkweed

Monarchs cannot survive without milkweed. With shifting land management practices, we have lost much milkweed from the landscape.

In the coming weeks, the monarchs I saw in Santa Cruz will set off from the coast, heading inland to mate and in search of milkweed plants on which female monarchs will lay eggs.

Monarch butterflies only lay their eggs on milkweed and the larvae exclusively feed on the milkweed sap, which is toxic to most other organisms. Monarchs have a unique capacity to sequester the toxins in the sap, which in turn makes them unpalatable to many predators.

Unfortunately, milkweed is in decline across the U.S., accounting for a significant portion of the population decline. Habitat loss and increased use of pesticides are largely to blame for the loss of milkweed. Climate change poses an additional threat to the species' habitat and population.

Efforts are underway by organizations like the Xerces Society, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop appropriate seed sources and to plant milkweed throughout the range.

More milkweed, more monarchs

Farmers that avoid the conversion of marginal lands to cropland can earn conservation credits for instead planting roadsides and field edges with milkweeds.

EDF recently decided to join in the effort to protect and restore habitat for the monarch butterfly, applying our own market-based approach to habitat protection – through habitat exchanges – to bring more of these conservation efforts to private lands, namely agricultural lands.

Since farmers, ranchers and forestland owners manage much of the habitat appropriate for milkweed, we are working to develop a tool that will accurately determine the value of habitat for monarch, which will in turn allow incentive payments to be directed to the right places at the right time, ensuring maximum bang for the buck, and for the butterfly.

If we are successful, I hope to see more monarchs returning to their old overwintering stomping grounds in Santa Cruz year after year.

Related:

Why we need a new way to protect wildlife >>

Habitat exchanges: How do they work >>

USDA invests $350 million to protect farmlands, grasslands and wetlands

By Eric Holst

Last week, Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval and Department of the Interior Secretary Sally announced their support for sage-grouse pilot projects on private and public lands through the Nevada Conservation Credit System. With that announcement came an impressive commitment of $2 million to fund the pilots.

The Nevada Conservation Credit System is now seeking to enroll land managers, namely ranchers, in projects that can earn them new revenue for a variety of conservation activities that improve sage-grouse habitat.

A catalyst for Nevada’s conservation market

The state’s $2 million commitment shows incredible leadership. By investing in solutions for the greater sage-grouse, the state is also investing in Nevada’s agricultural and energy economies.

Learn about existing pilots and opportunities to enroll.

That’s because this investment will translate into new revenue for landowners to create credit projects – credits that can eventually be sold as mitigation to industry buyers. The expectation is that the pilots will prove to be a financial opportunity for landowners and a faster, more efficient mitigation solution for impact industries.

This $2 million will be a catalyst for future investments in the Nevada Conservation Credit System, ensuring success not only for the sage-grouse, but also for Nevada’s rural and industrial economies.

Strong signals of support from Interior

Governor Sandoval and Secretary Jewell's public support for pilot projects was a strong signal from the federal government that the credit system is a valuable approach to conservation.

The Nevada Conservation Credit System was modeled off of similar programs, called habitat exchanges, underway in other states. Colorado announced its sage-grouse solution – the Colorado Habitat Exchange – in advance of the September 22 “not warranted” decision. And Wyoming launched the Wyoming Conservation Exchange, hiring a former conservation district manager to administer the exchange.

With continued state and federal support, new conservation solutions will continue to gain momentum and expand the conservation marketplace, giving landowners more choices and, ultimately, more opportunity.

Related content:

>> Habitat exchanges: How do they work

>> Ranchers and conservationists step up to avert listing of sage-grouse

>> Wyoming ranchers steward land, cattle and the greater sage-grouse

By Eric Holst

America’s agricultural lands are getting another significant boost from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), as Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the availability of $350 million to help landowners protect and restore key farmlands, grasslands and wetlands across the nation.

The funding, provided through the 2014 Farm Bill’s Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP), rewards farmers and ranchers for voluntary efforts to protect critical water resources and wildlife habitat from future development.

ACEP is a program that consolidates three former programs – the Wetlands Reserve Program, Grassland Reserve Program and Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program – into one voluntary program that provides technical and financial assistance to help landowners protect our nation’s vital farmlands, grasslands and wetlands.

The program is a shining example of USDA’s steadfast commitment to preserving the long-term viability and health of our agricultural landscapes.

How does it work?

To learn about ACEP and other technical and financial assistance available through NRCS conservation programs, visit www.nrcs.usda.gov/GetStarted or your local USDA Service Center.

ACEP’s agricultural land easements work in three key ways:

• First, the voluntary sale of easements works to prevent the conversion of productive farmland to non-agricultural uses, supporting our nation’s food supply.
• Second, the easements work to protect open spaces, or grasslands, that provide essential habitat for wildlife.
• Finally, the easements work to protect sensitive wetlands that support wildlife, improve water quality, reduce damage from flooding and recharge groundwater, among other benefits.

Of course, the protection and restoration of farmlands, grasslands and wetlands all provide recreational and educational opportunities, supporting local economies, histories and cultures.

Eligible landowners can choose to enroll in a permanent or 30-year easement. Tribal landowners also have the option of enrolling in 30-year contracts.

Examples of success

In the last two years, USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has invested more than $600 million in ACEP funding to help landowners engage in voluntary conservation to provide long-term protection of an estimated 250,000 acres of farmland, grassland, and wetlands through more than 750 new easements.

In north central Iowa, ACEP funds have been used to add nearly 400 acres to a 600 acre wetland protecting the recently restored Big Wall Lake.

Two land trusts in Colorado plan to use ACEP funds to enroll 1,805 acres to protect critical sage-grouse habitat in Saguache County and in the Upper Colorado River Corridor Priority Landscape located in Grand County.

With these kinds of robust investments in our nation’s working lands, USDA is helping to ensure a more sustainable and prosperous future for people, wildlife and the economy.

By Eric Holst

Today, President Obama announced a plan to safeguard America’s land, water and wildlife by establishing a “no net loss” standard for mitigating impacts on natural resources and encouraging related private investment to deliver better outcomes for the environment.

The plan will create a more sustainable future for the energy and agriculture sectors, for example, that provide our nation's food, fuel and fiber.

If there is one sector that I believe can gain the most from this new mitigation standard, it’s agriculture.

A historic commitment to conservation

Some might see today's announcement as the administration overstepping its bounds, but I see it as a continuation of the legacy established more than 25 years ago by President George H. W. Bush when he established a “no net loss” of wetlands policy – a policy that dramatically slowed the rapid loss of wetlands threatening our nation’s economy and national security.

By extending the “no net loss” standard to all natural resources, President Obama is creating a path for economic and environmental prosperity – understanding that, as our nation’s industries grow and thrive, we must also protect and enhance the natural systems that sustain us.

Opening new environmental markets for agriculture

If there is one sector that I believe can gain the most from this new mitigation standard, it’s agriculture.

Private lands make up the vast majority of the continental U.S. – lands that will be essential in offsetting environmental impacts from a variety of sectors. And when all of these industries need to mitigate their impacts with “no net loss” to land, water and wildlife, they will be looking to pay private landowners – farmers and ranchers – to offset these impacts.

The President’s new mitigation strategy should open the door to a whole slew of new environmental markets for agriculture, giving farmers and ranchers the opportunity to earn new revenue for conservation activities. If conservation isn’t already a part of their business models, it certainly can be now.

Benefits for the environment and the economy

The White House strategy specifically calls for landscape-scale, market-based solutions that allow us to achieve “no net loss” for the environment. Fortunately, such solutions already exist.

At Environmental Defense Fund, we’re working almost exclusively on these types of solutions. We’ve worked with energy and agriculture partners to develop habitat exchanges that create net benefit for wildlife on working lands – most recently for the greater sage-grouse. We also launched a Sustainable Sourcing Initiative that increases fertilizer efficiency to reduce runoff and improve soil health. Both of these initiatives allow farmers and ranchers to maintain their bottom line, creating net benefit for the environment and the economy.

With more solutions like this, agriculture will be well-equipped to help achieve the President’s “no net loss” goals, and to help sustain all that is core to America’s history, economy and prosperity.

By Eric Holst

Craig McNamara on his farm in Winters, California.

Craig McNamara embodies agricultural leadership in California. He has farmed a 450-acre organic walnut orchard in Winters, California for the past 35 years. He’s been an innovator in implementing conservation practices on his land that both enhance wildlife and benefit his farming operation. He’s also the president of the California State Board of Food and Agriculture, and an influential sustainable agriculture educator.

I’ve known Craig for about 10 years and have had the honor of serving with him on the State Board for the last two. I spoke with him about how he integrates farming with ecology and his plan for dealing with potential El Niño rains.

Tell us about the interventions you’ve made on your acreage to protect wildlife.

Do you remember when Earl Butz was Secretary of Agriculture under Nixon? His motto was to farm “from fencepost to fencepost” — removing biodiversity from our farms, which was a big mistake.

Over the past 20 years, we have been planting hedgerows on our land, which is the managed planting of California native grasses, plants, shrubs and trees. This ensures that something will always be in bloom from January to December so we have habitat for native pollinators, which are so critical to our global well-being in terms of food production. The lady beetles, butterflies, and native bees, which are our natural predators, require protein and energy to control pest populations in our orchard. If you don’t have a plant in bloom, they can’t survive.

You and your wife Julie have also done a lot to educate folks about hedgerows.

The mission of the Center for Land-Based Learning is to inspire and motivate people of all ages, especially youth, to promote a healthy interplay between agriculture, nature and society.

Twenty years ago we founded the Center for Land-Based Learning to teach high school students about sustainable agriculture and natural resource conservation. We engage students from Redding to San Diego in activities like restoration and planting hedgerows.

As we plant new acreage of walnuts, we often plant several acres in a hedgerow so that the inner part of the farm will be connected to our watershed of Putah Creek. This makes a flyway and corridor for animals and insects and birds that wouldn’t have had that habitat.

We also collaborate with UC Davis and UC Berkeley on technical research projects studying the populations of bees, bats, birds, owls, and rodents on our land. So we know for sure that these measures have contributed to conservation.

What have you done with sustainable watershed management?

We’re fortunate that our middle son, Sean, has come back to the farm to assist us. He’s taking on the creek restoration project and implementing a whole new mulching and composting regime for us. At harvest time, we remove the high-tannin hulls from the walnuts, and usually farmers just mound them up and they become a toxic mess because of the concentrated tannins, which is bad for water quality. But this year we will be composting the hulls with shredded walnut trees from old orchards.

And then you’ll use the compost?

We need about 1,000 tons of compost a year to feed the ground and fertilize it. We don’t use any synthetic fertilizers, so we depend on compost and cover crops, which are nitrogen-fixing plants.

How has the drought affected you?

We are fortunate to be in a watershed fed from freshwater in Lake Berryessa, but everyone in our watershed is unsustainably pumping from the aquifer, so we need rain. Now, we’re out preparing for the possible El Niño. We want to be able to capture that rainfall on the farm, pump it out from our creek and flood the orchard in order to recharge the aquifer. If we let the creek carry it away, it would quickly go out into the (San Francisco) Bay and the ocean. Our retention ponds that have been dry for years could store the water and it will percolate down.

The beauty is that farmers across California are much more aware of these water-banking techniques than ever before and are prepared to do that if we get the rain.

You've been involved as an advisor to the last three governors as a member and now president of the state board. How has that experience affected your farming operations and your interaction with the agriculture community in California?

Serving on the California State Board of Food and Agriculture has been the single most rewarding agriculture experience of my career. The leadership provided by Secretary (Karen) Ross and Governor (Jerry) Brown and my fellow board members has catapulted me into the most critical issues of our time: climate change and drought. I have been able to apply the experiences and models that I have gained at the Board level directly into pro-active farming practices on our farm. The connections that this experience has provided me extend across California agriculture and indeed all the way to Washington, D.C.

By Eric Holst

Stakeholders conduct field tests for the Colorado Habitat Exchange on a ranch in Colorado.

The decision whether or not to list the greater sage-grouse under the Endangered Species Act was one of the biggest listing decisions of our time.

Thanks to unprecedented public-private partnerships among ranchers, energy developers, conservationists and states, we now have the groundwork to guide future management of our nation’s wildlife and working landscapes.

The “not warranted” decision sends a strong signal that investments in conservation are making a difference, providing the catalyst for a new approaches and a different kind of politics.

Bringing the sharing economy to conservation

The reason the greater sage-grouse was not listed as an endangered species is because of major investments made in private working lands, and strong commitments by ranchers to steward their lands for sage-grouse.

So how do we operationalize and scale up this approach?

We draw from the sharing economy to unlock the vast untapped potential of private lands and use market forces to get small improvements on a very large number of acres. I like to think about it as Airbnb for wildlife.

Just as Airbnb allows private homeowners to get paid for opening a spare bedroom to travelers, habitat exchanges allow private landowners such as farmers and ranchers to get paid for providing quality habitat for vulnerable wildlife. The revenue is supplied by infrastructure developers seeking to mitigate the environmental impact of their projects.

"Now is the time for us to come together to change the business of conservation to benefit all." — Terry Fankhauser, executive vice president of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association

An example from Colorado

In places like Colorado, energy companies, agriculture leaders and that state worked together to develop the Colorado Habitat Exchange – a program that provides a fast and efficient means of moving mitigation dollars from oil and gas operations to ranchers with the most potential for restoring sagebrush habitat.

In a habitat exchange, landowners benefit from new revenue for creating or maintaining habitat. Industry benefits from scientifically valued credits that can be purchased to offset the impacts of development.

“The Colorado Habitat Exchange will create a new market for voluntary conservation that will help protect the greater sage-grouse and sustain Colorado’s robust energy and agriculture economies.” — Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper

The Colorado Habitat Exchange has proven that wildlife conservation does not have to come at the expense of the economy. That in fact, it is just the opposite. Similar efforts to launch habitat exchanges are underway in Wyoming and Nevada.

Up next: the monarch butterfly

Nearly a billion monarch butterflies have vanished since 1990.

Habitat exchanges aren’t just designed to work for sage-grouse. An earlier iteration of the program worked to recover golden-cheeked warblers in Texas and the next version is being adapted for the monarch butterfly.

Once again, the agriculture community will be critical partners in conservation efforts for the butterfly, but we can’t expect them to do it for free. We must continue to develop programs like habitat exchanges that provide the financial incentives, regulatory certainty and management flexibility to attract farmers to the conservation marketplace.

Related links:

With the launching of a new market, he’s a vanguard of grouse conservation in Wyoming >>

Feds call for cooperative conservation on sage grouse, states deliver >>

A cattleman’s quest to save a bird and help ranchers thrive >>

By Eric Holst

Photographers snap shots of two New England cottontails being released into new habitat during a celebration in Dover, New Hampshire

Saturday marked a new chapter in a years-long rabbit’s tale.

Of course I’m talking about the New England cottontail, which, until this week, was a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act.

Thanks to the work of private landowners, conservation groups, tribes, and state and government agencies, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has decided to remove this critter from the candidate list and declare that it’s well on the path to recovery.

A team effort

The growth of the New England cottontail population was a team effort, with important contributions from state wildlife departments, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and conservation organizations.

But the most important contribution came from farmers and forestland owners who committed to managing the specialized habitat of the New England cottontail.

“The decision not to list the New England cottontail shows that wildlife and working lands cannot just coexist, but thrive, in harmony. USDA is proud of the private landowners who stepped forward to make proactive conservation improvements on their land, restoring critical habitat for this unique rabbit.” — USDA NRCS Chief Jason Weller

These rabbits rely on young forests, with short trees surrounded by a variety of shrubs and bushes that provide critical protection from predators. As forests have matured over time, this habitat has experienced slow but significant erosion.

Thanks to the efforts of local landowners to cut trees and plant shrubs, 18,000 acres of new habitat was created for the rabbit.

Replicating the success story

A Montana rancher walks across the sagebrush habitat on his property — habitat vital for survival of greater sage-grouse

The commitment by local landowners to recover the New England cottontail has set a strong precedent for habitat management of other species across the country.

Out West, similar efforts are underway by ranchers hoping to restore enough habitat for the greater sage-grouse to put the bird on a positive trajectory and preclude the need for listing under the Endangered Species Act.

The more we can do to stimulate the conservation ethic of private landowners before wildlife are put on the Endangered Species List – whether by public or private investments, or other incentive programs – the more successful we will be in protecting species. Because, at the end of the day, the needs of our nation’s wildlife aren’t that different from the needs of agricultural producers. They both need healthy, productive land to thrive.

By Eric Holst

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced a four-year strategy to invest more that $200 million in greater sage-grouse conservation efforts.

The strategy, known as Sage Grouse Initiative 2.0, will build on successful public and private conservation efforts to improve sage-grouse habitat by providing additional assistance for ranchers to make conservation improvements to their land.

It’s encouraging to see USDA remaining at the forefront of federal efforts to move sage-grouse protection forward. This funding is a huge boost for sage-grouse, but there are opportunities through emerging programs for impact industries to do even more to protect this iconic bird.

More investments needed

Ranchers are absolutely essential to the success of the greater sage-grouse. They have proven to be willing and committed partners in conservation, so investments like this that tap into the abundant potential of private, working lands deliver the best strategy for recovery.

But we need more.

“I applaud America’s ranchers for their initiative in improving habitats and outcomes for sage grouse and other wildlife, and for their recognition that these efforts are also good for cattle, good for ranching operations, and good for America’s rural economy.” – USDA Secretary Vilsack

Habitat exchanges are one emerging program being developed by ranchers, energy companies and conservation groups to that offer financial incentives for industry and the agriculture community to invest in conservation.

In a habitat exchange, farmers and ranchers create, maintain and improve habitat on their property and earn credits for their efforts. Farmers and ranchers sell these credits to industry to compensate for development, such as roads, transmission lines and other infrastructure that impact species and habitat.

An investment through a habitat exchange is not just an investment in the greater sage-grouse. It’s also an investment in America’s rural economy.

The sooner, the better

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service faces a Sept. 30 deadline to decide whether or not the greater sage-grouse requires protection under the Endangered Species Act. Either way it falls, the decision will be momentous, as it will not only decide the fate of one bird, but it will also have major implications for U.S. agriculture and energy production.

Now is not the time to be complacent. We need to build on the momentum of investments like this one by USDA to make sure private industries and the 11 sage-grouse states are doing everything they can to ensure sage-grouse success.

We should all be invested in assuring the long-term sustainability of the greater sage-grouse, both for the economy and the environment

By Eric Holst

Wildlife warning sign on Highway 95.

My family and I returned home to California a few days ago following an idyllic week camping on Payette Lake near McCall, Idaho. Our route home took us down Highway 95 in southwestern Idaho, a road typically bordered by the beautiful farmlands of the Snake River Basin. But our views weren’t so picturesque.

Just south of Nampa, Idaho we began to notice the charred landscape left behind by the Soda Fire, the largest of recent fires burning across the United States. The Soda Fire has burned more than 280,000 acres of prime sagebrush steppe, which provides key grazing lands for cattle ranchers and important habitat for threatened wildlife like the greater sage-grouse.

As I gazed upon the aftermath of the fire, all I could think about was the devastating effects it has had on local ranching families and wildlife. Fortunately, there are steps we can take to restore these scorched landscapes and prevent damaging wildfires in the future, but we have to act fast.

About the Soda Fire

The Soda Fire burns grass and sagebrush in Idaho.

Fire is a natural occurrence in western sagebrush landscapes, but this fire burned particularly hot, driven by high winds and fueled in part by invasive cheatgrass.

The latest reports say that the fire is 90 percent contained with high hopes that it will be fully contained in the near future. At that point, the focus will turn very quickly to recovery efforts to restore critical habitat and to revitalize the livelihoods that have been so gravely affected.

However, the landscape is not one that is easily recovered. Sagebrush takes many years if not decades to restore to full functionality. This is particularly distressing to me when I think about the countless efforts by state and federal officials, private landowners and conservation groups that have been working feverishly over the last few years to protect habitat for the greater sage-grouse in an effort to keep it off the Endangeres Species List.

Seeding the path to recovery

Despite all of the economic, ecological and emotional losses caused by this fire, there is some good news.

The Interior Department announced yesterday a major new effort to prepare for restoration and recovery efforts that will help put lands destructed by fires on a path to recovery. The plan, formally called the National Seed Strategy, seeks to stock sufficient and appropriate native seed mixes so that restoration workers can rapidly reseed burned landscapes and start the clock toward recovery.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell elegantly stated, “Having the right seed in the right place at the right time makes a major difference in the health of our landscapes.”

Maintaining the natural fire cycle

Map of the Great Basin region, often impacted by destructive wildfires.

The National Seed Strategy will take some time to implement, so we can only hope that the appropriate seed stock is available for the Soda Fire site. In the meantime, a high priority must be placed on preventive measures, such as removal of invasive cheatgrass.

Presence of cheatgrass speeds up the fire cycle and makes it difficult for sagebrush to establish itself before the next fire hits, creating a new system of mostly annual grasslands without shrubs – a condition in which many shrubland species cannot survive. This is what is currently happening across vast swaths of the Great Basin region (Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Oregon and California) and is one of many threats to sagebrush species like the greater sage-grouse, mule deer and pygmy rabbit.

Investments in the form of government programs, or new innovative programs like habitat exchanges, can help drive preventive action while also providing new revenue opportunities to farmers and ranchers for conservation. Efforts like these are critical to restoring the species and the livelihoods that depend on these working western landscapes.

Related Links:

USDA: Helping ranchers is crucial to helping sage-grouse >>

How cover crops can help growers beat droughts and floods >>

Operation Warbler: Fort Hood and local ranchers team up to save bird >>

By Eric Holst

"An unprecedented, collaborative effort" was a blog published last week in The Hill by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe, BLM Director Neil Kornze, USFS Chief Tom Tidwell and NRCS Chief Jason Weller.

Last week, leaders of the four federal agencies dealing most closely with issues surrounding the greater sage-grouse delivered a strong public message: As long as stakeholders continue to work together, we can save this bird and preclude the need for listing.

The message was powerful – not just because it was endorsed by four of our nation’s top thinkers on conservation, but because it was optimistic.

“We have seen what’s possible when we all pull our oars in the same direction,” they wrote.

This is a fundamental turning of the tides in the conversation around sage grouse. Previously, the dialogue has been pointed, with industry interests, agriculture interests and wildlife interests caught in crosshairs. But the discourse has changed, and it’s because the situation on the ground has changed.

A sagebrush sea change

Across the West, groups of stakeholders are working together to develop habitat exchanges – voluntary market-based programs that offer advanced mitigation for sage grouse and other species by supporting strong and consistent standards.

If you were to go out to sage grouse country in Nevada, you would find a pilot project underway in which a rancher is managing his land to enhance grouse habitat. These habitat improvements may eventually be sold as a conservation credit under the Nevada Conservation Credit System – a habitat exchange recently adopted by the state of Nevada. The project is currently in the field data collection phase to determine conservation outcomes that can help to inform future projects.

Earlier this month, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper issued an executive order encouraging energy and other developers in the state to pursue sage grouse mitigation through the Colorado Habitat Exchange.

A multi-stakeholder effort is underway in Wyoming to build a version of habitat exchanges – the Wyoming Conservation Exchange – to voluntarily enroll farmers and ranchers in conservation commitments as soon as this summer.

The greater sage-grouse, an icon of the energy-rich sagebrush deserts across 11 Western states, is poised to lose 71 percent of its breeding range by 2080.

In May, Montana passed legislation designating $10 million to sage grouse conservation efforts. You guessed it – the legislation recognized market-based habitat exchanges as a mechanism to provide conservation.

Need more on board

At least four of the 11 sage grouse states have answered the federal call for cooperative conservation with habitat exchange programs that have the potential to deliver big for this bird. But the job isn’t done yet.

We need to continue building momentum – in the form of conservation dollars and regulatory assurances for market participants – to reach full market potential.

Now is the time to step up. We need to continue pulling our oars in the same direction.

By Eric Holst

Central Oregon rancher restores sage-grouse habitat with NRCS assistance. Source: nrcs.usda.gov

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) just announced new funding to support sage-grouse habitat conservation on working lands.

This is very promising, considering the last round of sage-grouse funding engaged more than 1,000 ranchers to conserve 4.4 million acres of bird habitat – an area twice the size of Yellowstone National Park.

That last round of funding – made available in 2010 through the Natural Resource Conservation Service's (NRCS) Sage Grouse Initiative – invested $296.5 million to restore and conserve sage-grouse habitat. Today, NRCS pledged to extend these efforts by $200 million over another for years.

Doubling down on a good investment

Folks at USDA and NRCS know farmers and ranchers, and they know that farmers and ranchers are critical to protecting the sage-grouse. After all, private lands are home to 40 percent of greater sage-grouse habitat, and many of these same ranchers have grazing leases on public lands

But they also know that the conservation activities that benefit sage-grouse can also be good for cattle ranching. Or, as USDA’s Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment Robert Bonnie put it, “What’s good for the bird is good for the herd.”

So this new funding isn’t just an investment in sage-grouse. It’s also an investment in America’s working landscapes.

Ranchers at the ready

Farmers and ranchers across the bird’s 11-state range recognize the central role they can play in recovering the sage-grouse. Their business, customs and culture are built on stewardship, so they are ready for the challenge.

For example, ranchers in the Upper Green River Basin of Wyoming have already been exploring the potential for a market-based solution – the Upper Green River Conservation Exchange – that can sustain both the ranch and the important riparian and wildlife habitat located on these rural working lands.

With a listing decision on the horizon, local ranchers are now working with the Sublette Country Resource Conservation District, University of Wyoming, The Nature Conservancy and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to develop the tools and framework to get the exchange up and running as soon as possible.

Following USDA’s lead

“We’re working with ranchers who are taking proactive steps to improve habitat for sage-grouse while improving the sustainability of their agricultural operations.” – USDA Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment Robert Bonnie

We can’t expect to help the greater sage-grouse without helping ranchers. That’s why we at EDF are also working to make farmers and ranchers a part of the sage-grouse solution.

Through collaborative design, we are building habitat exchanges that work alongside efforts like the Sage Grouse Initiative to enlist farmers and ranchers in conservation at an unprecedented scale and pace. The hope: to secure a positive future for the greater sage-grouse and maintain a vibrant western economy.

By Eric Holst

Earlier this month, the USDA authorized nearly $400 million in federal funds through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) to improve soil quality, water quality and quantity, and wildlife habitat.

The program funded 115 initiatives covering a wide range of conservation benefits, from improving wildlife conservation efforts in California’s ricelands to reducing fertilizer runoff in the Mississippi River Basin.

These projects demonstrate that by prioritizing spending of conservation dollars on projects where large numbers of farmers are committed to cooperative conservation, we can avoid the need for costly regulatory programs.

Helping farmers helps everyone

“We’re giving private companies, local communities and other non-government partners a way to invest in a new era in conservation that ultimately benefits us all.” – USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack

USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said that the program will support rural economies, paying contractors and small businesses to do the hands-on work. With heavy attention paid to the interest and willingness of farmers in key regions, I am excited to see the results of these local investments.

Here are two examples of local projects with big potential to help wildlife, people and the economy:

1) Protecting valuable wildlife in California’s Central Valley

The California Rice Commission is the lead partner on a project that will allocate $7 million in voluntary waterbird conservation projects in the Sacramento Valley.

A black-necked stilt nests in a California rice farm

California ricelands provide habitat to nearly 230 wildlife species – millions of birds that fly along the Pacific Flyway. The value of winter waterfowl habitat in California Rice is estimated at $2 billion.

Large numbers of rice growers have indicated willingness to enhance waterbird habitat, but cost is a limiting factor. The chance to match willing rice growers with federal funds that will unlock more habitat for birds is an opportunity that we can’t afford to pass up. I am pleased that NRCS has prioritized California’s piece of the Pacific Flyway for this level of investment and can’t wait to see these cost-effective habitat projects on the ground soon.

When combined with complementary wildlife conservation projects like the Central Valley Habitat Exchange, Sacramento Valley famers will be delivering significant conservation that will not only help wildlife, but also the local community and economy.

2) Reducing phosphorus in the Western Lake Erie Basin

The Tri-State Western Lake Erie Basin Phosphorus Reduction Initiative will receive $17.5 million in funding to help farmers implement conservation practices that reduce phosphorus runoff, which contributes to algal blooms like the one that shut down Toledo’s water supply in August.

The funds will help identify high-priority sub-watersheds for phosphorus reduction and increase farmer access to resources and technical assistance to implement conservation practices to ensure and preserve water quality.

Farmers in the Western Lake Erie Basin are already playing a key role in protecting waterways and drinking water by voluntarily conducting research on their fields to better understand how to achieve greater efficiencies in nutrient management. Additional funding for this type of proactive approach is exactly what’s needed to assure reliable water supplies in the future.

More funding to come

Funding for these projects was authorized in the 2014 Farm Bill at a level of $1.2 billion over five years, so there is more to come.

With close to 500 grant proposals unfunded in this round of spending, USDA is now looking to help strengthen applications for future rounds of funding, which will be announced later this year.

I am encouraged by the initial grants and look forward to seeing more funding flow to farmers investing in quality conservation.

By Eric Holst

The greater sage-grouse

You may have seen a strange looking bird causing quite a stir in the news recently. That’s because there’s a lot at stake with the greater sage-grouse, especially now that a rider in the federal spending bill prevents the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from listing the species under the Endangered Species Act in 2015 (a decision was originally expected in September). But this delay isn’t stopping ranchers, conservationists and other key stakeholder from moving full speed ahead to find a solution.

You might not get this sense from the political dialog and the media, but out on the ground, there is a real spirit of cooperation when it comes to the greater sage-grouse. That’s because everyone realizes that – rider or no rider, listing or no listing – this bird needs help.

Greater sage-grouse once numbered in the millions, but in the past 30 years its population has shrunk 30 percent to no more than 500,000 birds, and it could be less than half that. We don’t have another year to sit back and watch populations decline further. Doing nothing will only increase the need for federal action in the future.

The best thing we can do is to use this time to build a conservation program that works – fast.

That’s exactly what state agencies, landowners, energy companies and conservation groups are trying to do through habitat exchanges, which will enable landowners such as ranchers and farmers to get paid for growing sage-grouse habitat.

“We are more determined than ever to work with the states, ranchers, energy developers and other stakeholders who are putting effective conservation measures in place with the shared goal of reaching a ‘not warranted’ determination.” — Interior Secretary Sally Jewell

Habitat exchanges are unique in that they’ve been designed to work whether or not a species is actually listed – providing incentives to get good conservation on the ground before any last minute Hail Mary federal protections are needed.

“Research has shown that society can better avoid significant costs with upfront actions, rather than reactive regulations,” said Terry Fankhauser, executive vice president of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. “Everyone sees the opportunity; they realize that species like the greater sage-grouse can thrive as a managed component of a successful beef cattle ranch.”

Landowners can learn more about the Greater Sage-Grouse Habitat Exchange here.

What landowners can do now

There is a number of voluntary conservation activities that landowners can choose from to participate in an exchange, all of which are conducive to agricultural practices like cattle ranching. These activities include:

• Controlling the expansion of pinyon-juniper trees into sagebrush habitats;
• Permanently protecting the best sagebrush habitats from development;
• Restoring sagebrush on degraded lands;
• Managing livestock grazing to improve habitat;
• Controlling the expansion of invasive plants that degrade habitat.

The sooner landowners can engage in activities like this, the sooner we will see sage-grouse populations grow and the better prepared we will be when the Fish and Wildlife Service makes a final determination.

We should all want to see populations grow so that a listing is not necessary. But crossing our fingers and hoping for the best is not a winning strategy. We must nurture the productive partnerships that have already been developed in sage-grouse country to promote solutions like habitat exchanges that benefit everyone: the oilman, the cattle rancher and the sage-grouse.