NJAS Opinion: December, 2005

by Susan Kraham
      NJAS Director of Policy and Counsel to the President

The shrinkage in the flora is due to a combination of clean-farming, woodlot grazing, and good roads. Each of these necessary changes of course requires a larger reduction in the acreage available for wild plants, but none of them requires, or benefits by, the erasure of species from whole farms, townships, or counties. There are idle spots on every farm, and every highway is bordered by an idle strip as long as it is; keep cow, plow, and mower out of these idle spots, and the full native flora . . . could be part of the normal environment of every citizen.
Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There, 1948, Oxford University Press, New York, 1987, pp. 47-48.

In New Jersey, wildlife is critically threatened by encroaching development and loss or fragmentation of habitat. Species that have evolved over thousands or millions of years are on the brink of disappearing. Wildlife does not respect property boundaries.  It knows not whether it is foraging on public or private land.  Unlike our schoolchildren, it cannot name the 21 counties or identify their boundaries.  We must increase our efforts to ensure long-term protection of New Jersey's natural heritage and the preservation of wildlife-related recreation.  This can only happen if private landowners become partners in the New Jersey's conservation efforts.  NJAS is actively involved in partnering with private landowners and, as we describe below, we are advocating for additional funding and policy changes to link incentives to species protection and resource conservation and to target funding to scientifically-derived focal areas. 

Well aware of the imperative for private landowner participation in conservation, and particularly concerned with farming practices, Aldo Leopold asked and answered a question of great importance: "Why is it that conservation is so rarely practiced by those who must extract a living from the land? It is said to boil down, in the last analysis, to economic obstacles."  Incentive programs for landowner conservation are designed to overcome those economic obstacles.  These programs implement a proactive approach to habitat creation in targeted landscapes in the state by working directly with landowners, especially farmers.   There are federal and state funds available on a competitive basis to encourage individual landowners to help conserve rare species and their habitats. 

These programs are available to owners of wetlands that have been drained for agricultural use; abandoned fields; property that is overrun with invasive (non-native) plant species; tracts of five or more acres; property that is home to rare, threatened or endangered species; property adjacent to protected open space or wildlife management areas; property containing a stream and property in lower Cape May County.  Conservation projects targeted by the programs include converting fields from nonnative cool season to native warm season grasses; fencing stream banks; restoring and protecting vernal pools; restoring Bog Turtle habitat; restoring grassland; and enhancing riparian habitat.  The programs are available for land that is highly erodable, low-yielding or of lower productivity.  To a lesser extent, incentive programs are available to support forest conservation and limit forest parcelization.  Similar efforts are rewarded in Europe through the European Union's Environmental Stewardship program.  In that program, farmers earn points for doing things that create a healthier and cleaner environment.  With enough accumulated points, farmers earn subsidies – what a former EU commissioner calls "payment for public services that farmers provide." 

The key to the success of landowner incentive programs is targeted, funded technical assistance that enhances access to funds for landowner.  Pennsylvania's experience is instructive.  Between June 1, 2000, and November 15, 2003, Pennsylvania's Farm Service Agency received 6,665 applications for the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) from approximately 4,000 landowners, who offered to enroll 127,064 acres in conservation cover plantings. Game Commission-sponsored wildlife habitat biologists and other federal staff completed eligibility determinations for 6,436 applications and wrote 4,506 conservation plans encompassing 82,706 acres, including 20,058 acres of native warm-season grasses and more than 650 miles of riparian buffers.  Pennsylvania's success is due primarily to the fact that it has 21 staff biologists working on the program.  Each of these biologists provides technical assistance to potential applicants – assistance that takes them from the idea stage to submission of applications.  By contrast, New Jersey, which this month will hire its first two biologists to do this work, put only 12 acres in the CREP program in its first two years. 

To increase New Jersey's participation in landowner incentive programs and coordinate access to them, in early 2005 New Jersey Audubon Society co-founded the New Jersey Habitat Incentive Team (NJHIT) along with the NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  NJHIT is a coalition that unites a diverse group of sportsmen’s groups and environmental organizations that affect land stewardship for common conservation and habitat restoration goals.  Like the programs in other states, NJHIT will implement a proactive approach to habitat creation in targeted landscapes in the state by directly contacting and working with landowners, especially farmers.  NJHIT will greatly emphasize grasslands and early successional habitats but other habitats including wetlands and forests will also be targeted. Once hired, the private lands biologists will work cooperatively for the Division of Fish and Wildlife and NRCS to be the primary point-of-contact with private landowners within focal areas. 

NJAS' own conservation and stewardship programs parallel the goals and objectives set forth in this initiative.  For example, NJAS has implemented a direct outreach campaign to potential participants.   Through a generous grant from the Mushett Family Foundation, NJAS has prepared and distributed a Guide to Incentive Programs For New Jersey Landowners.  The Guide also is available at www.njaudubon.org/conservation.  The response has been enthusiastic.

But enthusiasm is not enough.   To maximize the environmental success of these programs we need to increase funding for technical assistance, stewardship and conservation.  Voluntary conservation incentive programs help farmers and forest landowners produce environmental benefits.  By paying farmers for producing public goods such as clean air, clean water and habitat for at-risk species, we are compensating them for providing a public service.  Removing the economic obstacles to engaging private landowners in efforts to meet the environmental challenges requires a significant financial commitment.

Many of the available programs require cost-sharing by the private participants.  While this is one way to ensure cooperation, other options should be available.  These should include "rental" payments for fields used for conservation and other subsidies for environmental goods.

We also need to press for increasing the efficacy of these incentive programs by targeting lands that can improve air and water quality, provide habitat for threatened and endangered species and prevent forest parcelization.  Importantly, these programs should focus on regional and watershed-based efforts to provide wildlife corridors and prevent fragmentation.  

NJAS is committed to advancing these goals.  Our conservation staff is providing outreach and technical assistance to landowners in focal areas.  (Please see Grassland article in this issue).  Our policy staff is working toward the adoption of state and federal legislation that would ensure adequate funding for the incentive programs and the technical assistance necessary to enable landowners to participate.  And we are determined to focus public attention on the opportunities conservation provides for wildlife related recreation and the economic benefits those activities create.

NJAS members can help advance this important conservation effort by clicking here to sign up for New Jersey Audubon's Online Action Center.