IEAB Independent

Economic

Analysis Board

Roger Mann, Chair

Noelwah R. Netusil, Vice-Chair

Kenneth L. Casavant

Daniel D. Huppert

Joel R. Hamilton

Lon L. Peters

Susan S. Hanna

Hans Radtke

A Scoping Investigation of Approaches to Preserving Habitat

Task 104

June 5, 2006

Executive Summary

This task report: (1) outlines different approaches that have been used by BPA and other

organizations to acquire and preserve habitat, (2) examines the attributes of these approaches,

and (3) proposes areas for future analysis. Section 2 of this report begins with a short review of

BPA’s wildlife habitat mitigation program. Section 3 gives short descriptions of the alternative

methods that can be used to acquire and protect habitat and describes the criteria that should be

used to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the alternative methods. Section 4 provides several

examples of how these methods are used in practice.

The two methods of habitat preservation that we address in the most detail are fee simple

acquisition and conservation easements. We conclude that:

 Where the landowner offers the choice, one can often attain the same objective through

either purchase or easement -- both tools can be very useful.

 There is no one method of habitat acquisition that is best in all cases, so each proposal for

habitat preservation needs to be examined in terms of the specifics of the proposal. The

ecological and economic consequences are specific to the parcel and context.

 Fee simple purchase is often the most expensive in terms of up front purchase price since

all the rights to the property are being acquired, but it generally provides the greatest

long-run certainty of habitat protection.

 The cost of acquiring a conservation easement will approach the cost of fee simple

acquisition as more rights to the land are acquired. Where habitat goals require that the

primary land use rights not be exercised, for example, development rights in the case of

urban land, timber rights in the case of forested land, and water rights in the case of

irrigated land; fee simple acquisition is likely to be cost-effective.

 Changes that affect a small share of the acreage, for example, protecting a riparian

corridor or a unique habitat parcel on a large parcel of land; or changes in land use

practices that are not very expensive for the landowner may be accomplished costeffectively using a conservation easement.

 Transactions costs can be much higher for conservation easements than purchases

because the contract terms are often quite complex. Transactions costs per acre on small

parcels can be substantial.

 Both fee simple acquisitions and conservation easements involve future land management

costs that should be considered in habitat acquisition decisions.

 Conservation easements add uncertainties about compliance with the terms of the
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conservation easement by subsequent landowners and enforcement of the easement

provisions. Enforcement by a third-party can be incorporated into the terms of a

conservation easement.

 Conservation easements and fee-simple land held by a land trust or other entity relieve

the agency of the obligation to manage the land, but they expose the agency to financial

and management problems that the land trust may encounter.

 Purchase may be a first step in a process. Purchased land may be re-sold subject to a

conservation easement. In some cases the land may be divided, and an existing house or

developable land sold. The important habitat land can be retained or sold subject to an

easement.

 Local community acceptability may be an important consideration in the choice between

fee simple acquisition and conservation easements, especially in rural areas.

We reached several conclusions of a more general nature:

 BPA has made good use of settlement agreements in its wildlife mitigation program. In

this way, BPA has provided money to the states and tribes, who then assume the tasks of

acquiring and protecting habitat, relieving BPA of those obligations.

 A number of other methods of habitat acquisition and protection have not been widely

used in the Northwest (at least not used as part of BPA’s habitat acquisition program).

We conclude that these other alternatives deserve a closer look, and that with partnering

and coordination these methods could play a useful part in habitat protection in the

region.

 The choices among the alternative methods of habitat acquisition, and the procedures for

implementing options such as conservation easements are complex. The Council should

continue to develop its expertise and to make use of existing expertise in the region to

help address these complexities.

 Although BPA has not yet defined habitat units for salmon, the principles in this paper

can be generally applied to acquisitions of fish habitat, whether through acquisition of

water rights or riparian land.

This report represents our “scoping investigation.” That is, it is an initial exploration of the

topic, which can serve as the foundation for a more detailed examination of habitat protection

alternatives. If we are directed by the Council to proceed with a follow-on project, this should

include several case studies illustrating the alternative methods for preserving habitat parcels and

the application of evaluation criteria. In addition, when habitat acquisition proposals come

before the Council, the IEAB is prepared to assist the Council in the application of the principles

and criteria described in this paper. Finally we recommend additional analysis of historical

acquisition costs for cost benchmarking and cost-effectiveness analysis.
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1. Introduction

The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is required to mitigate the impacts to wildlife

caused by the development of the Federal Columbia River Power System (FCRPS). The

Northwest Power and Conservation Council (Council) also has responsibilities to plan for the

mitigation and recovery of the region’s fish and wildlife. The Independent Economic Analysis

Board (IEAB) was asked1 for a scoping investigation that would (1) outline different approaches

that have been used by BPA and other organizations to acquire and preserve habitat, (2) examine

the attributes of these approaches, and (3) propose areas for future analysis.

The report is organized as follows. A brief background of Bonneville Power Administration’s

Integrated Fish and Wildlife Program is provided in Section 2. Section 3 describes alternative

approaches to protecting fish and wildlife habitat and the attributes of these alternative methods,

with a focus on fee simple acquisitions, conservation easements, and settlement agreements. The

fourth section contains examples drawn from an IEAB meeting with organizations in the region

that have preserved fish and wildlife habitat.

2. Background – BPA Wildlife Habitat Mitigation and Acquisition

Losses of Columbia Basin wildlife habitat as a result of the construction of the FCRPS have been

quantified by the Region’s fish and wildlife managers through the completion of "loss

assessments" for each dam. These form the basis of the losses identified in the Northwest Power

and Conservation Council’s Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program. Loss

assessments identify "habitat units" (HUs) lost due to construction. A habitat unit is an acre of

habitat adjusted for suitability for use by target species that typically rely on a particular kind of

habitat. The suitability is measured by wildlife experts and expressed as a “habitat suitability

index” (HSI) which ranges from zero (zero carrying capacity for the species of interest) to 1

(highest quality habitat). Habitat units are then calculated as the acres of habitat multiplied times

the suitability index. As BPA implements a mitigation activity, it takes credit for its effort in

HUs. The habitat units are measured or estimated and then counted against the loss assessment

for the particular dam project under consideration. BPA takes one habitat unit of credit for each

habitat unit it mitigates.

Table 1 summarizes the amounts of habitat lost, regained or protected at each of 20 FCRPS

projects in the Columbia basin (with the four dams shared by two states being listed twice).

Column 1 is the HUs lost from building the dam (mostly riparian habitat) and column 2 is the

HUs gained from building the dam (usually reservoir habitat or newly inundated land). Thus the

difference is a general indicator of the HUs lost which are to be mitigated by BPA under the

Northwest Power Planning and Conservation Act. Column 3 is HUs acquired that were in

danger of destruction, and column 4 is estimated HUs that should be gained from improving

habitat productivity on acquired land. The sum of columns 2, 3 and 4, less column 1 gives the

net gain/loss of HUs after BPA’s mitigation activities, as shown in column 6. Over half of the

roughly 404 thousand acres of wildlife habitat losses at 20 dams have been mitigated. According

 1 The issue was initially raised by Doug Marker, Director of the Council’s Fish and Wildlife Division in a meeting

with the IEAB. This request was subsequently designated as IEAB Task 104 by the Council.
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to BPA, wildlife habitat mitigation is complete for the construction impacts of Hungry Horse,

Libby, Dworshak, Bonneville, The Dalles, John Day, and McNary and nearly complete for the

Lower Snake projects at Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental, and Ice Harbor dams.

We note that the habitat units (HUs) listed in Table 1 represent acres of habitat for a variety of

species (e.g. eagles, beaver, deer, warblers) as assessed by biologists. Since more than one

species may inhabit a given acre of habitat, the total HUs lost or gained at a particular dam site is

the summation of HUs for multiple species. Hence, these figures may double- or triple-count

acres of land which are suitable habitat for more than one target species. Among the wildlife

biologists and agencies who deal with habitat restoration there is no general agreement on the

meaning or appropriateness of this summary of habitat units.

The methods used by BPA to acquire wildlife habitat have included fee simple acquisition,

easements, leases, and exchanges of land. As shown in Table 2, of the 170.8 thousand habitat

acres acquired, fee simple acquisition makes up the vast majority, 144.3 thousand acres or 82%

of the total. The cost per acre of habitat acquired varies widely. For fee simple acquisitions, the

average cost is $430.53 and for conservation easements the average cost is $1,035.57. The

relative size of the average costs for various approaches does not indicate how costly these

alternatives will be in the future. So, for example, the conservation easements acquired by BPA

may have been concentrated on more highly valued land that could not have been purchased at

lower prices, while the fee simple acquisitions may be concentrated in relatively lower priced

land. Also, costs have not been adjusted for inflation and cost-shares (if any).

As noted in the NPCC 2000 Fish and Wildlife Program (FWP), there is a great advantage in

being able to move quickly and flexibly to acquire interests in land and water rights for the

purpose of protecting or enhancing fish and wildlife habitat. Often the opportunity for an

important acquisition exists only for a short period of time, and often there is a substantial price

advantage in being able to quickly close the transaction. The time and uncertainty of the current

project selection process, and the procedural constraints on real estate acquisition by federal

agencies, have made these transactions relatively difficult and more costly than necessary.

Consequently, the FWP recommended that Bonneville establish a funding agreement for land

and water acquisitions. The Council will establish a mechanism, including an advisory entity that

can act flexibly, quickly, and responsibly in approving funding for land and water acquisition

proposals. The primary elements are:

• A dedicated budget within Bonneville’s fish and wildlife fund will establish the amount

of funding for land and water acquisitions available per year, for a multi-year period. The

budget is known as the "Land and Water Acquisition Fund."

• An advisory board will be appointed by the Council after consultations with

representatives from Bonneville, federal and state fish and wildlife and land management

agencies, Columbia Basin Indian tribes, non-profit organizations specializing in habitat

and water acquisitions, and the Council. The board will recommend for Council approval

all land and water acquisitions from the dedicated budget. The Council will make all final

recommendations and decisions regarding land and water acquisitions from the fund.
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• Specific procedures and criteria for the board to use in identifying, reviewing, and

deciding whether to recommend proposals for land and water acquisitions need to be

developed. These criteria will be reviewed by the Independent Scientific Review Panel,

but specific land and water acquisitions would not require Independent Scientific Review

Panel review. An element of these criteria will be a preference for proposed actions that

1) address imminent risks to the survival of one or more species listed under the

Endangered Species Act and 2) are broadly recognized as achieving direct fish and

wildlife benefits. The criteria should emphasize consistency with the program’s

biological objectives and subbasin plans, standardized terms for implementing

acquisitions, including matters of contracting, management, crediting, operation and

maintenance costs, and monitoring and evaluation requirements.

• The development of accountability provisions for reporting on monies spent, properties

acquired, biological gain, and consistency with program and subbasin objectives. The

program as a whole will receive periodic review by the Independent Scientific Review

Panel.

The fund does not take title to acquisitions except on an interim basis, but will, for each

transaction, identify an appropriate entity to hold the interest acquired. The fund works in

cooperation with other efforts that are already underway to benefit fish and wildlife through

acquisitions of land and may provide cost sharing or full funding for transactions that have been

arranged by others. In appropriate circumstances the fund may provide for the continuing

payment of local taxes and fees on an acquisition.

These habitat acquisition procedures and accounting mechanisms have not been applied to

salmon and resident fish habitat because habitat units have not been defined for salmon and fish.

However, the principles discussed in this report, based upon the experience of BPA and other

institutions in habitat mitigation, could be applied to acquisitions for fish habitat including water

acquisitions.
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Table 1. BPA Wildlife Accounting as of 1/26/20062

(6)

Net HU

Dam

(1)

HUs Lost

(2)

HUs

Gained

(3)

HUs

Acquired

(4)

HUs

Estimated

(5)

Total HUs

Acquired

 + HUs

Estimated

= (3) + (4)

Gain/Loss

= (5) – (1)

Albeni Falls 28,658 171 2,306 2,717 5,023 -23,464

Anderson Ranch 9,619 0 1,047 0 1,047 -8,572

Big Cliff 413 40 0 32 32 -341

Black Canyon 2,170 76 57 0 57 -2,037

Bonneville OR 6,159 1,335 590 0 590 -4,234

Bonneville WA 6,159 1,335 3,875 7,786 11,661 6,837

Chief Joseph 8,833 1,440 1,433 0 1,433 -5,960

Cougar 11,124 1,637 207 100 307 -9,180

Detroit 11,298 3,233 0 58 58 -8,007

Dexter 6,648 1,214 0 150 150 -5,284

Foster 3,544 926 0 96 96 -2,522

Grand Coulee 111,785 0 61,212 17,707 78,919 -32,866

Green Peter 16,432 4,742 0 0 0 -11,690

Hills Creek 19,489 853 1,496 0 1,496 -17,140

John Day OR 18,280 7,199 14,057 0 14,057 2,976

John Day WA 18,280 7,199 16,798 0 16,798 5,717

Lookout Point 25,454 2,636 0 513 513 -22,305

Lower Snake 26,775 0 24,305 961 25,266 -1,509

McNary OR 4,710 2,749 6,465 0 6,465 4,504

McNary WA 18,834 10,995 22,041 728 22,769 14,930

Minidoka 10,503 5,129 1,721 112 1,833 -3,541

Palisades 37,070 0 16,080 0 16,080 -20,990

The Dalles OR 1,165 289 0 0 0 -876

The Dalles WA 1,165 289 1,899 0 1,899 1,023

Total 404,567 53,487 175,589 30,960 206,549 -144,531

Data in columns 1-4 derived from data on BPA’s website at:

http://www.efw.bpa.gov/Integrated_Fish_and_Wildlife_Program/WildlifeCrediting_files/WL_10.pdf

 2

 HUs gained represent habitat units created by the project. HUs acquired are habitat acquisitions in which a habitat

evaluation procedure (HEP) has been completed. HUs estimated are projected HUs for approved projects but a HEP

has not been completed and the HUs include proposed restoration work.
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Table 2. Summary of Wildlife Habitat Acquired (acres), Purchase Cost, and 

Cost per Acre by “Purchase Type”

Purchase Type BPA Acres

Acquired

BPA Purchase

Cost

Average Cost

$/Acre

Easement 3,119 $3,229,955 $1,035.57

Exchange 1,493 $1,003,889 $672.40

Fee simple acquisition 144,316 $62,132,033 $430.53

Lease 613 $570,250 $930.26

Mix 20,337 $6,338,725 $311.68

Unknown 1,004 $1,720,124 $1,713.27

Total 170,882 $74,994,976 $438.87

From June 2005 data contained from BPA website at:

http://www.efw.bpa.gov/Integrated_Fish_and_Wildlife_Program/WildlifeCrediting_files/WL_13.pdf

Note: Costs per acre should not be taken as an indicator of future costs because they have not been

adjusted for inflation. Also, costs have not been adjusted for cost-shares, habitat quality, location (urban

versus rural), etc.

3. Methods to Acquire and Preserve Fish and Wildlife Habitat

Government agencies may want to protect land for its habitat, scenic, access, recreation, historic

or endangered species values. There are many alternative approaches that can be used to

preserve fish and wildlife habitat. Our goal is to outline the major approaches that may be useful

to the Council and BPA in meeting their obligations for habitat planning, endangered species

recovery, and fish and wildlife mitigation requirements. Since this is intended to be a scoping

investigation, we will begin with a short description of each of the alternatives, followed by short

descriptions of the criteria that the Council and BPA might use to evaluate the appropriateness

and potential effectiveness of these approaches. We then suggest a table which could be used as

a template to compare the alternative methods used to acquire and preserve the habitat values of

a particular proposed land parcel. Completion of the table would be a follow-on task to this

report.

The following section will begin with a discussion of the three most important alternatives for

wildlife habitat preservation: fee simple acquisition, conservation easements, and settlement

agreements. We will also discuss in lesser detail a range of other possible ways of mitigating the

impacts on wildlife.

A. Alternative methods for habitat preservation

Fee simple acquisitions. This is the most straightforward of the approaches to habitat

acquisition. Fee simple ownership of property means ownership of all rights to the property –

the right to use it in any way the owner wants consistent with applicable laws, to develop it as

they want, to grant others access to the property or to exclude others, to pass it on to heirs, or to

sell the property to whomever they wish. Fee simple acquisition of property for fish or wildlife

habitat means that you acquire the entire bundle of rights associated with the property – usually

by buying it outright from a willing seller (or perhaps by accepting a donation of land).
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Since fee simple means acquiring all of the rights to land, the cost to acquire fee simple

ownership is often more than the cost to acquire a conservation easement for only some of the

rights to the land. However if the rights acquired via easements comprise the bulk of the value

of the land -- as might be true for developable urban land -- then easements and fee simple

acquisitions will have approximately the same cost.

Conservation easements. Conservation easements are legal agreements between a landowner

and either a nonprofit agency, such as a land trust, or a government agency. The agreement

protects the conservation values of the land by placing limits on how the land can be used. A

conservation easement affects only some of the bundle of rights associated with land ownership.

The agreement may restrict the owner’s ability to develop the land or constrain how the land is

used. However, the owner is free to continue to use the land subject to these restrictions, sell it,

or pass it on to heirs. The easement runs with the land, so all future owners are also bound by

the terms of the agreement.

The agency may retain ownership of easements, or an easement may be developed in

cooperation with a non-profit land trust that will assume ownership of the easements, and assume

the responsibility for seeing that the terms of the easement are followed. Passing ownership,

management and enforcement to a land trust relieves the agency of these responsibilities, but the

non-profit land trust’s management and enforcement costs will still have to be funded somehow

– perhaps by fundraising efforts by the land trust, perhaps by endowment from the landowner, or

perhaps by agreement with the agency. A third-party enforcement agency -- which can enforce

the conservation easement if the land trust fails to do so -- can be designated when negotiating

the conservation easement.

Landowners may have various incentives for voluntarily agreeing to conservation easements.

Owners may be motivated by a desire to see the conservation values of their property protected

in perpetuity, or by the desire to protect heirs from having to disperse the property to satisfy

estate taxes. For easements that serve a government purpose, the agency may be willing to buy

easements from willing sellers. In other cases owners may be willing to donate easements

because of the other benefits they may get from a conservation easement. If the easement meets

the standards set by the IRS, these benefits may include income tax benefits since the reduced

land value can be counted as a charitable donation, and property and estate tax benefits from the

reduced value of the property. If a conservation easement reduces the market value of a parcel

from $500,000 to $200,000, then the $300,000 difference can be counted as a charitable

deduction on income tax returns, and the $200,000 remaining land value will be used as the basis

for estate taxes.

Property tax benefits to landowners from a conservation easement are less certain, since these

may be subject to state property tax law and the vagaries of the county property tax assessment

process. In some jurisdictions, agricultural land is assessed at its “use value”, based on the

estimated returns from using land for agricultural purposes, rather than the potentially much

higher market value of the land. In such cases property taxes may already be quite low, and

there may be little reduction in property taxes from a conservation easement.
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Placing a conservation easement on forestland may also present property tax problems. In some

jurisdictions forestland taxes are low or deferred as the trees grow, and then collected at the time

the trees are harvested. If a conservation easement precludes harvest, the effect that this will

have on property taxes is uncertain. Property taxes may not change if a conservation easement

includes a management plan that does not preclude harvest.

Conservation easements at first appear to offer significant cost effectiveness advantages over fee

simple acquisition. However, the cost of a conservation easement in urban areas often

approaches the cost of fee simple because most of the land value is in its development potential,

which presumably is precluded by the conservation easement. At the same time, a conservation

easement is a complicated contractual agreement, so the transaction costs are usually higher than

for a fee simple acquisition. Conservation easement contracts must be enforced, which may

result in monitoring and enforcement costs significantly above those for fee simple land.

Holders of conservation easements must be concerned about what happens once the landowner

sells the property although sometimes a conservation easement contract gives the easement

holder a first right of refusal to buy the land to help address this uncertainty about successor

owners.

Conservation easements often work best for larger parcels, since the costs of setting up a

conservation easement are mostly per transaction, rather than per acre. Prospective holders of

conservation easements need to think geographically in terms of the cost of managing dispersed

units, and the advantages of acquiring easements on land adjacent to land they already control.

The transactions costs of fee simple acquisitions are often less than the cost of negotiating a

conservation easement, but if owners do not want to sell the land, then a conservation easement

may be the best alternative to protect the habitat.

Sometimes a property is purchased in fee simple, then a conservation easement put on it, and

finally the property resold subject to the easement. This may significantly reduce the transaction

costs for setting up the conservation easement. Sometimes, especially if the parcel contains an

existing residence, the parcel is subdivided and the conservation easement is placed only on the

unimproved portion.

The choice of fee simple versus a conservation easement depends in part on the objectives.

Easements can be a very effective tool for protecting riparian corridors. Conservation easements

can be used to specify management practices, but monitoring and enforcement can be very

difficult, so easements work best when monitoring is inexpensive. An easement “will not tell a

landowner what to do, but it does tell him what he can’t do.” Easements are most effective when

the easement use restrictions can be easily observed, and where the restrictions are not very

costly or restrictive for the existing land use.

During a joint meeting of the IEAB and the ISRP, several ISRP members expressed concerns

about using conservation easements held by land trusts because of the loss of control over how

the land is managed compared to fee simple land acquisitions by BPA. This seems to be one of

the more important limitations of relying on contracts rather than ownership to preserve habitat.
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Settlement and land management agreements. A settlement agreement resolves a lawsuit (or

a legal dispute prior to filing a complaint or petition) without going forward to a final court

judgment. Settlement agreements are usually negotiated by the parties, and may be subject to

approval by a court.

Settlement agreements have proven to be a very useful tool for BPA to meet their required

habitat mitigation quota. BPA reached agreement with the State of Montana on a lump sum

payment, which Montana uses to acquire and manage habitat land. In return Montana agreed

that BPA had satisfied its mitigation obligations in that state.

Similarly, BPA reached agreement with the State of Idaho and the Nez Perce Tribe that a lump

sum payment used to acquire and manage land would satisfy the wildlife habitat mitigation

obligations incurred for the construction of Dworshak Dam and Reservoir.

Such settlement agreements have a real advantage to BPA, since they bring closure to the need to

provide habitat mitigation for past dam construction, and because they transfer the responsibility

for acquiring and managing the habitat land to another entity such as a state or tribe.

The possible uses of settlement agreements and land management agreements go beyond the

examples cited above. When federal environmental regulations are violated, the result is often

litigation, and the litigation often ends in a settlement agreement. Many of these settlement

agreements have habitat consequences, and might provide a mechanism to help achieve Council

and BPA habitat objectives.

Habitat Conservation Plans. Habitat conservation plans are agreements between a nonFederal entity (usually private landowners and/or local governments) and the “Agencies” (the US

Fish and Wildlife Service and/or National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) responsible

for Endangered Species protection. If the landowners and local governments can collaboratively

agree with the Agencies on a habitat conservation plan that will conserve the species, they are

granted an “incidental take” permit and will not later be charged with unintended taking.

The Agencies encourage the development of habitat conservation plans, since this is one way to

collaboratively promote habitat protection and improvement, and because this is one of the few

tools the Agencies have to protect the habitat of listed species on private land. Landowners and

local governments like habitat conservation plans because the plan gives them certainty that

allowable development can proceed with “no surprises.” The no surprises rule only applies to

species that are expressly included in the habitat conservation plan, so the process encourages

planners to take a broad look at all species of potential concern whether listed or not.

HCPs have not been used to mitigate for FCRPS impacts on wildlife, and BPA and the Council

are not normally parties to a habitat conservation plan. However, the Council and BPA habitat

interests do overlap with the habitat interests of FWS and NOAA, meaning that it may be

worthwhile to look at the possibilities of partnering.
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Land leases. One alternative to acquiring fee simple title to land is to lease land from willing

owners. A lease is a contract which conveys specified uses of land to the lessee for a specified

time period. Some owners of land with desirable habitat values may be willing to lease the land,

but are not willing or ready to sell it or put a conservation easement on it. The terms of the lease

will stipulate the duration of the agreement, the rights acquired by the lessee and the rights

retained by the lessor, and the payment required. A lease may convey only some of the land use

rights. A lease might convey hunting rights, the right for public access to a stream, or the right to

build a fence to exclude cattle from the stream.

Leases might be used in conjunction with some of the other tools described in this paper. For

example, a landowner might be willing to lease land for 5 years, at which time a sale or a

conservation easement is anticipated.

The fixed duration of a lease may be a problem for the BPA habitat mitigation plan, which

requires the acquisition of permanent habitat. In practice BPA has interpreted permanent as

being more than 60 years, so very long-term leases would qualify and might be cost effective

depending on the terms of the lease. There are budget implications for BPA since land that is

purchased is a capital expenditure while payments for leasing land comes from the agency’s

annual budget, and BPA has a limit on the amount of debt it can take on.

Options to purchase and right of first refusal. An option to purchase gives the holder the

right to buy a specified parcel of land at a specified time and predetermined price. Right of first

refusal gives the holder the right to meet any other purchase offer before the proposed offer is

accepted.

If a landowner is not ready to sell a property now, but expects to be willing to sell at a specified

time in the future, then selling an option to purchase may be appropriate. Likewise, if the needs

of the purchasing government agency are satisfied by buying later, rather than sooner, so long as

the later availability is assured, then buying an option may be appropriate. Options can also

preserve the ability to purchase or lease land in the future, in situations where procedures for

purchase or lease can be lengthy.

In visualizing options as a part of BPA’s habitat mitigation program, options are sometimes a

critical tool for preserving habitat preservation opportunities. There may be budgetary reasons to

use purchase options to shift purchase expenditures from one year to another. Purchase of

options might be linked to subsequent fee simple property acquisition, or to anticipated

acquisition of a conservation easement. Land trusts sometimes use options to encumber land for

later acquisition.

Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) and Transfer of Development Rights (TDR). PDR

and TDR programs generally operate at the local level. For a PDR program, a local unit of

government acquires the development rights from willing landowners, usually preserving

agricultural land and open space, and perhaps in the process preserving habitat values. These

programs to purchase development rights are usually financed by local taxes. Except for the

local government involvement and local tax financing, this option bears a strong resemblance to

purchased conservation easements.
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A program for transfer of development rights is also a local government program, where there

are both buyers and sellers of the rights to develop. The municipality usually designates TDR

selling areas where it wants to promote low density and open space, and TDR buying areas

where it wants to promote development of a higher density than would be allowed as a use of

right. Generally a developer who needs TDRs will buy them directly from landowners who hold

excess TDRs, although in some cases the municipality may play an intermediary role, buying

from willing sellers and selling to developers. In most cases the role of the municipality is as

facilitator, rule-maker and regulator, not purchaser.

Because they are local programs, PDR programs, and especially TDR programs, are closely tied

to local land use planning and local zoning processes, which provide the regulations and

incentives that make the programs work. In order for a market for TDRs to function,

development regulations must be quite restrictive in the base case so developers are forced to

buy development rights from willing sellers to achieve a desirable intensity of development.

In addition to the purchase proceeds, sellers of development rights may reap property tax and

estate tax benefits because selling development rights will reduce the value of the land.

Despite that fact that PDR and TDR programs generally operate at a local level, they may affect

habitat values, suggesting that facilitation, partnering, and even financing by BPA might be

worth considering.

Tradable environmental credits. Tradable environmental credits might be thought of as a

generalization of the TDR program to other environmental attributes. The most familiar of these

market-based regulatory programs limit the rights to emit specific air pollutants in a given

region, and allow market forces to move these rights to the highest valued users. It is argued that

these market-based programs will result in considerable savings over traditional command and

control regulations. In principle, one could visualize tradable credits being applied to discharge

of water pollutants and other forms of environmental degradation. One could even think of

water markets as an extension of these principles.

Again, it is unclear whether there is an appropriate niche for the Council and BPA in these

environmental credit programs, beyond a possible role in facilitating and partnering. If

participating in a tradable environmental credits program allows BPA to assure some wildlife

mitigation benefits, then an argument could be made that this should count toward its target

mitigation requirement.

Federal farm programs. The USDA has a number of programs for land retirement and land

conservation. Many of these programs are specifically designed to preserve and enhance the

habitat value of cropland. For example, the Council has funded about seven fish habitat

enhancement projects on lands where Conservation Reserve Program conservation agreements

were signed for 10-15 years; primarily in the Columbia Plateau area of Oregon. Those projects

enjoy a large cost-share from the USDA and provide protection of riparian habitat in agricultural

areas.
13

From the perspective of NPCC and BPA wildlife habitat programs, these USDA programs have

a problem because they are short-term. Most of the USDA farmland conservation involves

contractual terms that range from a few years to 10, 15, or 20 years duration. Only a few of the

USDA programs (the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) and the Farmland Protection Program

(FPP)) allow the possibility of 30 year or even perpetual contracts. Thus most of the more

commonly used USDA programs do not satisfy BPA’s definition of permanent habitat

protection.

It may be worthwhile to develop ways to coordinate USDA programs with some of the other

habitat acquisition programs. It might be possible to work out an agreement with a landowner to

enroll land in a USDA program for ten years, at which time the landowner agrees to implement a

conservation easement with BPA and a local land trust. Other such combinations might also

work, and might provide opportunities for leveraging BPA’s limited budget for habitat

preservation. If such combinations are assured by contract, this should provide the durability of

protection needed to count the land for BPA’s habitat protection program.

Certification programs. Green certification programs, generally run by industry groupings, are

drawing attention as market-based alternatives to promote environmental protection,

conservation and sustainability. The intent of these programs is to facilitate consumer selection

of products that experts have judged to be sensitive to the environment. While some of these

programs have been criticized as “greenscam”, they are a growing factor in markets for

consumer products.

Certification of forest products is one program that seems relevant to the habitat protection

interests of the NPCC and BPA. The Forest Stewardship Council (an international grouping of

environmental non-governmental organizations) developed the first forestry certification

standards in 1991. This was followed shortly by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, a forestindustry promoted program. The Forest Stewardship Council has the most participating certified

timber companies, while the Sustainable Forestry Initiative has the most land under certification.

Another certification that appears to be very relevant is the “Salmon Safe” program. This

program certifies farms, wineries, corporate campuses, parks and other areas as meeting

primarily water standards for safety to salmon.

Since certification programs are voluntary, private and non-governmental, any role for NPCC

and BPA would probably be partnering, informational and promotional.

Programs to acquire water rights and convert them to instream use. Water is a critical

element of habitat for both fish and wildlife. Many streams have been appropriated to the point

that instream flows are a critical limit on the habitat value even in normal (average water) years.

In recent years, several programs have been developed to acquire water rights, and to use these

rights to enhance instream flows.

Section 4 of this report briefly describes the role of the Oregon Water Trust in helping to broker

this kind to transaction. Similar transactions are occurring under the sponsorship of the

Washington Water Trust, and in Idaho using the vehicle of BPA salmon recovery funding.
14

While the salmon motivated transactions undoubtedly also have wildlife benefits, there is

apparently no mechanism in place for BPA to claim wildlife mitigation credits for these

transactions. This appears to be a fruitful area for partnering and program coordination.

B. Evaluation criteria for assessing alternative approaches

A number of criteria may be used to assess alternative approaches to habitat protection. These

include cost-effectiveness, certainty of protection, durability of protection, ability to finance,

economies of scale and scope, opportunities for partnerships and leveraging, incentives for

landowner participation and community acceptability.

Cost-effectiveness. Cost-effectiveness is one of the most important criteria for ranking the

alternative strategies for preserving habitat values. To measure program cost-effectiveness, key

measures of program effectiveness (outcomes) must be identified, and the costs of the alternative

strategies that would achieve those outcomes compared. The cost effective strategy is the

alternative that achieves program objectives at the lowest cost.

Section §4(h)(6)(C) of the Northwest Power Act requires that the Council "will utilize, where

equally effective alternative means of achieving the same sound biological objective exist, the

alternative with the minimum economic cost." Section §4(h)(l0)(D)(vi) states that "in making its

recommendations to BPA, the Council shall determine whether the projects employ costeffective measures to achieve program objectives.”

Despite its central importance, it is often a challenge to do cost effectiveness analysis of a

program to preserve habitat, since both effectiveness and costs prove rather difficult to measure.

Should effectiveness be measured as numbers of acres or number of stream miles protected, as

numbers of birds or number of fish produced, or should some other measure of effectiveness be

used? If the measure chosen is a biological one, this brings uncertainty into the picture, because

it is often difficult to link habitat measures to biological results such as fish or bird numbers.

Both BPA and the ISRP seem to be uneasy about whether the “habitat units” measure now being

used to quantify BPA’s habitat mitigation requirement corresponds to defensible biological

goals. Certainly, BPA would prefer to select habitat preservation measures with more certain

and more biologically defensible expected results.

The way BPA calculates habitat units makes it difficult to measure project effectiveness. Since

habitat units are calculated for selected target species, it raises the question whether habitat units

for species A are additive to habitat units for species B. Is adding another species A habitat unit

equally “effective” as adding another species B habitat unit? This raises the possibility that the

BPA fish and wildlife program may find itself trading off one species against another in the

competition for limited rehabilitation funds. This issue of species tradeoff in habitat

rehabilitation goes beyond just the BPA fish and wildlife program. For example, habitat

programs aimed at recovery of listed salmon species may also result in tradeoffs of one species

against another.

It is also a challenge to measure the costs of habitat protection programs. In order to avoid

comparing apples to oranges, the costs of the alternative programs must be estimated on a
15

comparable basis. Generally this means looking at the cost of each project over its lifetime

–presumably in perpetuity since BPA is mainly interested in permanent habitat acquisition. Fee

simple acquisition would mean a lump sum payment up front, followed by management

expenses through the future years. A conservation easement might also need an initial lump sum

payment, but if it is transferred to a land trust, along with a management endowment, the trust

may agree to cover the ongoing management and enforcement costs. (This does not mean that

the management is thereafter “free”, but it would or could move off BPA’s budget.) A program

to lease habitat would most likely mean an obligation to make ongoing annual payments in

future years. Land improvements (say a fence to keep livestock out of a stream) will have an

initial cost, ongoing maintenance costs, and a finite lifetime after which they will have to be

replaced. The uncertainty of costs is also an issue. The upfront costs will be known with a fair

degree of certainty. However, the ongoing management and enforcement costs will be less

certain. The future costs of maintaining an ongoing portfolio of short-term leases of habitat

would depend on future economic conditions, making it quite uncertain.

To compare the cost effectiveness of alternative ways of acquiring habitat protection, one must

put their different time-streams of costs on a comparable basis. This means looking at either the

present value of the future cost stream or the annual equivalent value. The costs will include the

initial acquisition price, the transaction costs of the acquisition, the ongoing costs of managing

acquired land, and the ongoing costs of managing and enforcing an easement. In some cases

these costs will be partially offset by future revenues from payments for use of the land, and in

some cases there will be revenues from the subsequent sale of some of the acquired land.

The question of what discount rate to use is always a contentious one. For BPA, a reasonable

interest rate to use is the rate certified annually by the Treasury Department for use by federal

agencies in evaluating federal water projects (http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdirbr.htm).

Certainty and durability of protection. It is desirable that habitat protection be very certain

and very durable. Presently BPA has a strong preference for fee simple acquisitions rather than

conservation easements. The agency is more confident that land will be effectively managed for

habitat if it owns the land, compared to land with a conservation easement controlled by a land

trust. Potential enforcement problems with successor owners, uncertainty about land trust

management practices and uncertainty about future financial and management stability of land

trusts all contribute to the uncertainty of relying on conservation easements for habitat

protection. Of course these uncertainties must be balanced against the possible lower costs of

conservation easements and their possible greater attractiveness to landowners and acceptability

to the community.

BPA’s fish and wildlife mitigation program requires it to achieve permanent mitigation of the

effects of some of its dams. In practice, BPA has interpreted permanent as being 60 years or

more. This has meant, however, that habitat protection using leased land has not been

extensively used by BPA.

As noted above, one short-term tool, the option to buy, could reasonably be used to tie up land

prior to an expected future fee simple acquisition or an expected future conservation easement.

Using options in this way should satisfy BPA’s need for permanent mitigation, and perhaps at
16

lower cost than initial, outright acquisition.

It may be worthwhile considering whether leases could also be used in combination with other

methods of habitat preservation, or possibly as a portfolio of habitat leases that may change

through time.

Ability to finance under the Fish and Wildlife program or other programs. The specifics of

the laws and budgets that agencies operate under will affect their choice of how to acquire fish

and wildlife habitat. BPA is a self-financed federal agency that recovers its costs from sales of

power, but for capital spending BPA also has access to a limited amount of borrowing from the

federal treasury. To the extent that fee simple land acquisition is treated as a capital expense,

this means it has a much smaller impact on BPA’s power rates, but it also uses a portion of

Bonneville’s limited borrowing authority. Annual expenses for such things as lease payments,

land management, and easement enforcement will have to come out of the agency’s annual

budget. However, if these annual management expenses are provided for by a one-time

endowment payment, then one could argue that they become capital expenses.

Our discussion with Peter Paquet, the Council’s Manager for Wildlife and Resident Fish,

indicated that policy changes are being considered so that if BPA gets habitat unit credits from a

project, the agency will be able to capitalize that project.

Economies of scale and scope. Owning habitat land and holding conservation easements

involve substantial costs for land management and enforcement, and these costs depend on the

scale and configuration of the parcels. There are economies of scale to land management – large

parcels cost less per acre to manage than small ones. Scattered parcels are more expensive to

manage than contiguous ones. It may make sense to acquire a small parcel contiguous to

existing holdings, while acquiring a similar small non-contiguous parcel might not make sense.

Similarly, it may make sense for an agency that already has land management responsibilities to

acquire more fee simple land for habitat protection. However, an agency that does not already

have land management responsibilities may be better served by encouraging and funding

conservation easements to be held and managed by another government agency that already has

land management responsibilities (such as the state or federal fish and wildlife or parks agencies)

or by a land trust.

Opportunities for partnerships and leveraged funding. Several opportunities for partnering

and possibly for leveraged funding were mentioned above. These include partnering with other

federal agencies to influence the nature and application of settlement agreements, habitat

conservation plans, and federal farm programs. The partnering might be with local agencies to

influence the terms of purchase of development rights and transfer of development rights

programs, or with private activities such as industry certification programs.

Incentives for landowner participation. There are a number of reasons why a landowner

might want to participate in one of these habitat protection programs. For the willing seller of

fee simple interest in land, one presumes that the selling price was incentive enough to induce

participation. The picture is more complicated for a conservation easement. If the easement is
17

purchased, then the amount of the payment is one incentive. If the easement is donated, then the

income tax deductibility of the gift is an incentive so long as the landowner has enough income

to have an income tax liability that the donation can be used to offset. In either case, there may

be property tax and estate tax incentives.

All of these methods for habitat preservation have one common thread – they benefit from

landowners willingness to invest in conservation. Most landowners tend to appreciate wild

habitat, and they appreciate the species that depend on that habitat. Most landowners are willing

to take action to protect habitat, so long as they don’t face too many offsetting costs, or so long

as they are compensated adequately.

Community acceptability of ownership. Any actions taken by a federal agency to acquire or

preserve habitat will be a matter of intense interest to the local community. In the west, where so

much land is already under federal ownership, additional federal land acquisition may be

perceived negatively. Even given considerable personal incentives to participate in a habitat

preservation program, many landowners will be reluctant to participate if there is strong

neighborhood opposition. Organizations that are locally based – land trusts organized and run by

local people, local municipalities, local Indian tribes – are likely to be perceived as more

sensitive to local needs and local culture and are likely to be viewed more favorably.

The biggest concern is often with the tax impacts on local governments. If the government

acquires fee simple ownership of habitat land, this removes land from the tax roles, meaning that

all other owners of private land in the area will end up paying more taxes to support local

services such as roads, schools and law enforcement. If the acquisition is through a conservation

easement held by a local land trust, then there is less of a tax impact since the remainder of the

land value remains on the tax roles. Nonprofit holders of land or conservation easements

sometimes enter into agreements with local governments to continue paying property taxes or

payments in lieu of taxes in order to reduce this local fiscal impact.

Other issues that often concern the local community include issues of public access, water use,

weed control, and the possibility that restricting economic activity on this parcel may affect the

local economy.

C. A proposal to rank the approaches using these criteria

One of the most important points that the IEAB wishes to make in this report is that each of the

alternative methods for acquiring and protecting habitat should be evaluated according to each of

the suggested criteria. The assessment of which protection method is best will be case-specific –

it will depend on the attributes of the land and on the needs of the participants involved. Also,

each method of habitat acquisition has advantages and disadvantages so that no single method

will be uniquely better. The empty table presented as Appendix 4 is intended as a template for

this evaluation.

We will leave it to a possible follow-on task to flesh out these evaluation criteria, and perhaps to

fill in the blank table for one or more example cases. A follow-on study would allow us to

address several related issues, such as:
18

 what relative weight should be given to the alternative evaluation criteria,

 what are the distributional consequences of alternative acquisition methods on

different stakeholders, and

 how do these issues relate to the relative absence of monitoring of the effectiveness of

past habitat acquisitions.

4. Examples

Many non-profit organizations and government agencies are actively involved in preserving and

restoring habitat in the Columbia Basin. BPA has funded a number of projects, such as the

Columbia Basin Water Transactions Program and the Lower Columbia Estuary project, that

involve partnerships with these organizations. The following examples are based on an IEAB

meeting on March 15, 2006 with three experts on habitat protection3:

William Eadie, Real Estate Negotiator, Metro Parks and Greenspaces Program

Ian Sinks, Conservation Director, Columbia Land Trust

Fritz Paulus, Executive Director, Oregon Water Trust

Metro’s Open Spaces Acquisition Program. Metro, a regional government that encompasses

25 cities within the Portland metropolitan area, used funds from a 1995 natural areas bond

measure to purchase more than 8,000 acres within the region. Metro manages these properties or

it enters into intergovernmental management agreements. Metro’s objective has been to preserve

land for its habitat value with passive recreation (bird watching, interpretive centers) occurring

on some properties. Target areas are identified using a scientific assessment of their habitat

value.

Metro has primarily used fee simple acquisition although it has entered into conservation

easements, life estates, estates for years (where Metro owns the property and allows the original

owner to live in the house for a specified period of time), and lot line divisions (where the

property is divided so the house and land are in different parcels, and the land is protected).

Metro is proposing a ballot measure for November 2006 that will raise additional funds for land

acquisition. It is anticipated that 80% of the funds raised from the ballot measure --

approximately $165 million-- will be used for fee simple acquisitions. Metro will seek to

leverage funds from other sources which could provide a partnering opportunity for BPA with

the limited dollars that BPA spends in the Willamette relative to the rest of the Basin.

Columbia Land Trust. Columbia Land Trust (CLT) is a regional land trust based in

Vancouver, Washington. CLT focuses on the Columbia River region and priority areas outside

the region such as Willapa Bay, Grays River, and Youngs Bay. CLT has more than 7,000 acres

in conservation and has received funding from BPA through the Lower Columbia Estuary

project to acquire 1,000 acres of marshland area that it is actively restoring and monitoring. BPA

is receiving habitat unit credits for the Grays River project and for Crims Island.

 3 The IEAB also met on April 18, 2005 with Geoff Roach, the Director of the Trust for Public Land’s Oregon Field

Office.
19

In addition to using conservation easements, the CLT recently entered into a 50-year

conservation lease that allowed CLT to restore lands that would otherwise be unavailable. The

tax benefits from a conservation lease are uncertain, and the lease provides more flexibility to the

lessee than an easement, so this approach many not be attractive to many property owners and

would not satisfy the durability of protection required for BPA’s program. A conservation lease,

however, could be combined with an agreement for a future conservation easement or an option

for future fee simple acquisition.

CLT is a non-profit organization and is therefore not subject to property taxes. It has agreed,

however, to pay property taxes and to have its properties assessed at their full market value

(usually based on an open spaces zoning). Properties are open for public access with prior

notification; holdings in Klickitat County have been used for hunting.

While conservation easements are permanent, monitoring and enforcement can be expensive

with legal costs of a contested conservation easement estimated at $100,000. Using an easement

to require certain management practices, for example, sustainable forest management, may be

difficult because this objective may not be clearly understood by all parties involved in the

transaction. Conservation easements can be an effective tool when management objectives are

clear such as for protecting riparian corridors.

CLT makes an annual visit to each property and maintains a close relationship with landowners.

However, the transfer of property with a conservation easement to a new landowner raises

questions about the certainty of protection. Some land trusts have conservation buyer programs

where the trust markets a property with a conservation easement and helps find a buyer with a

“conservation ethic.”

Columbia Basin Water Transactions Program (CBWTP). The CBWTP was established in

2002 in response to Reasonable and Prudent Alternative 151 of the 2000 Federal Columbia River

Power System Biological Opinion and Provision A.8 of the Council’s 2000 Fish and Wildlife

Program. It is administered through a partnership between BPA and the National Fish and

Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), with an objective of funding water transactions that restore

streamflow on ecologically significant Columbia Basin tributaries. Inadequate streamflows are

cited by many subbasin plans as a key factor limiting the productivity of both anadromous and

resident fish species. The CBWTP has recently expanded its efforts beyond water transactions to

riparian conservation easements in the Columbia Cascade Province.

The CBWTP works through nine qualified local entities (QLEs). The QLEs include three state

water agencies and six nonprofit organizations, one of which is the Oregon Water Trust,

described below. These QLEs submit proposals to the CBWTP for funding to implement and

monitor water transactions in priority watersheds throughout the Columbia Basin. Since 2002,

the QLEs have completed over 100 water right transactions of varying terms through a number

of methods, including split-season leases, source switches, permanent purchases and water

produced through significant capital investments in irrigation efficiency projects. The number of

transactions showed a declining trend for the first three years of the CBWTP, and has now

leveled out (BPA Proposal 200201301).
20

Oregon Water Trust. The Oregon Water Trust (OWT) is of one of the QLEs participating in

the CBWTP. Based in Portland, Oregon, it was the first water trust in the United States. OWT

acquires water rights for instream flows through gifts, leases or purchases.

OWT’s priorities include smaller tributary streams where small amounts of water can have a big

impact. Their focus has been on salmon, steelhead, and resident trout bearing streams with a

recent focus on bull trout.

OWT uses dry lease options (time limited transfer of rights), and forbearance agreements (an

agreement not to divert), split-season leases (a shut-off date is negotiated) in addition to more

traditional approaches, such as leases and purchases, to achieve its objectives.

The matching of land acquisitions with water rights is an area for additional research and

represents a potential partnering opportunity for BPA. Under this approach, land could be

purchased and the water right changed to allow for a split-season right. Easements could also be

placed on riparian corridors and the land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program. The

land would then be sold with the restrictions in place.
21

Appendix 1: Annotated Bibliography with Relevant Literature

Byers, Michelle and Karin Marchetti Ponte, Conservation Easement Handbook, 2nd Edition, The

Land Trust Alliance and The Trust for Public Land, 2005.

This is the “bible” for anyone interested in conservation easements. It offers information

useful to landowners considering entering into a conservation easement and information

useful to land trusts interested in promoting and managing conservation easements. The

volume provides case studies, model agreements and IRS guidelines.

It will be left to a future task to expand on this section.

Appendix 2: Links to Related Web Sites

BPA’s wildlife mitigation page:

http://www.efw.bpa.gov/Integrated_Fish_and_Wildlife_Program/wildlife.aspx

Council’s Fish and Wildlife Program:

http://www.nwcouncil.org/library/2000/2000-19/AppendixC.pdf

http://www.nwcouncil.org/library/2000/2000-19/frame.htm

(In the second link use the index at the left side of the screen to go to “Basinwide

Provisions” section D.7. Also look at “Implementation Provisions” section A.8.)

National Land Trust Organizations:

Land Trust Alliance: http://www.lta.org/index.shtml

Trust for Public Land: http://www.tpl.org/

The Nature Conservancy: http://www.nature.org/

Local Land Trusts:

Columbia Land Trust: http://www.columbialandtrust.org/

Columbia Basin Trust: http://www.cbt.org/main/default.asp

Water Transactions Programs

Columbia Basin Water Transactions Program: http://www.cbwtp.org/jsp/cbwtp/program.jsp

CBWTP website has links to QLE partners

Certification programs:

Salmon Safe: http://www.nature.org/

Forest Stewardship Council: http://www.fsc.org

Sustainable Forestry Initiative: http://www.aboutsfi.org/core.asp

Environmental credit programs:

Willamette Partnership: http://clev17.com/~willamet/?q=

Ecotrust: http://www.ecotrust.org/forestry/markets/
22

Programs by other government agencies:

Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board: http://www.oregon.gov/OWEB/index.shtml

Metro: http://www.metro-region.org/pssp.cfm?ProgServID=5

Interest rates for Federal Water Projects:

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdirbr.htm
23

Appendix 4: Evaluation of Alternative Wildlife Protection Methods

Cost-effectiveness.

Certainty and

Durability of

protection.

Ability to finance

under the Fish

and Wildlife

program or

other programs.

Economies of

Scale and

Scope

Opportunities

for

partnerships

and leveraged

funding.

Incentives for

landowner

participation.

Community

acceptability of

ownership

Fee simple

acquisitions.

Conservation

easements.

Settlement

agreements.

Habitat

Conservation Plans.

Land leases

Options to purchase.

PDR and TDR

Programs

Tradable

environmental

credits

Federal farm

programs

Certification

programs.