The purpose of the Endangered Species Act is to conserve threatened and endangered species and the ecosystems upon which they depend. Currently, there are about 1,300 threatened and endangered species protected under the act and approximately 280 candidate species that may eventually warrant future protection under the act. The Endangered Species Act generally requires that the Secretary of the Interior (or the Secretary of Commerce for species under its jurisdiction) designate critical habitat for protected species—that is, habitat essential to a species’ conservation—and to develop recovery plans that include actions necessary to bring species to the point that they no longer need the act’s protection. The act requires all federal agencies to utilize their authorities, in consultation with the Secretaries of the Interior or Commerce, to carry out programs for the conservation of threatened and endangered species. In addition, where a federal agency action may affect a listed species or its critical habitat, the act requires the agency to consult with the relevant secretary to ensure that the action is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any protected species or adversely modify critical habitat. Federal agencies assess the potential effects proposed projects may have on protected species and may modify projects to avoid harmful effects. We have previously reported that these consultations often take longer than the allotted timeframes and frustrate federal agency officials and private parties involved in this process. Protecting habitat is an important component to recovering many threatened and endangered species, as habitat loss is a leading cause of species decline. Habitat destruction and degradation is caused by many factors, and sometimes is the result of land conversion (e.g., for home and road building or commercial development), and logging activities including logging roads and other forest management practices. In some situations, agricultural activities such as diverting water for irrigation purposes, livestock grazing, and applying pesticides and fertilizers, can contribute to habitat destruction or degradation. However, the extent to which such activities impact species and their habitats is a function of many factors, including the nature of the agricultural activity and its proximity to the species. Despite its impact on habitat, agricultural land is nonetheless widely recognized as vital to the protection of the nation’s environment and natural resources. As such, USDA operates approximately 20 conservation programs designed to address a range of environmental concerns—such as soil erosion, surface and ground water quality, loss of wildlife habitat and native species, air quality, and urban sprawl—by compensating landowners for taking certain lands out of agricultural production or employing conservation practices on land in production. USDA has established regulations governing these programs, including eligibility requirements pursuant to authorizing statutes. Depending on the program, decisions about the projects to fund occur at the national, state, or local levels. Table 1 summarizes the six USDA programs included in our review. While the authorizing statutes for each of these programs include measures designed to benefit wildlife and wildlife habitat, WHIP is the only program where authorizing legislation specifically mentions the development of habitat for threatened and endangered species. However, USDA includes protecting habitat for threatened, endangered, and other at-risk species in the national priorities it developed for EQIP and WHIP in 2006. While billions of dollars have been invested in conservation practices through these USDA programs over the years, including actions to benefit wildlife, clear data on the effects of these programs has been relatively limited and many questions remain regarding the conservation impacts of these practices. As a result, USDA is currently engaged in an effort to quantify the environmental benefits of its conservation program practices. This effort, known as the Conservation Effects Assessment Project, began in 2003 and has three primary components: an assessment of national summary estimates of conservation practice benefits and the potential for USDA conservation programs to meet the nation’s environmental and conservation goals, watershed assessments involving basic research on conservation practices in selected watersheds to provide a framework for evaluating and improving performance of national assessment models, and development of bibliographies and literature reviews on conservation programs to document what is known and not known about the environmental benefits of conservation practices and programs for cropland and fish and wildlife. Survey respondents identified various incentives and disincentives, as well as suggestions to address disincentives, to participating in the six conservation programs we reviewed for the benefit of threatened and endangered species. The most frequently identified incentives were financial benefits, program evaluation criteria that give projects directly addressing threatened and endangered species greater chances of being funded, and landowners’ personal interest in conservation. Financial issues were also identified as a disincentive to participating in these programs, with limited funding available to the programs overall and for individuals specifically, most frequently identified by survey respondents. The other most frequently identified factors limiting participation were fears about federal government regulations, administrative and paperwork requirements, participation and eligibility requirements, and potential limits on current and future uses of the enrolled land. The most frequently identified suggestions for encouraging greater participation were increasing funding, improving education and outreach to landowners, streamlining paperwork requirements, and allowing greater flexibility in program participation and eligibility requirements. Respondents noted that while some of these suggestions may serve to increase participation in the programs, they may not necessarily benefit threatened and endangered species. As might be expected, respondents most frequently identified financial benefits as the primary incentive to participating in the six USDA conservation programs we reviewed for the benefit of threatened and endangered species or their habitat. Program evaluation criteria that give projects directly addressing threatened, endangered, or other at-risk species greater chances of being accepted and landowners’ personal interest in conservation were the next most frequently identified incentives. Survey respondents most frequently identified financial benefits as a primary incentive for a landowner to participate in the conservation programs we reviewed. Several types of financial benefits were identified as encouraging participation, including annual rental payments, cost-share assistance, enhancement and incentive payments, and conservation easement payments. Annual rental payments. Annual rental payments are available to producers enrolled in two of the six USDA programs we reviewed—CRP and GRP. Annual rental payments provide landowners with a guaranteed source of income for their land in exchange for agreeing to participate in multi-year contracts in order to provide sustained conservation benefits. For example, under CRP, FSA provides annual rental payments for 10 to 15 years to participants who convert land in agricultural production to less intensive uses such as establishing grasses and other vegetative covers to, among other things, control soil erosion and enhance wildlife habitat. Cost-share payments. Cost-share assistance is available through each of the six programs we reviewed. In this report we use “cost-share assistance” to mean a payment by USDA for a certain percentage of the cost of implementing an approved conservation practice where the participant and—depending on the program—public agencies, nonprofit organizations or others contribute to the remaining amount. For instance, under EQIP, NRCS may pay up to 75 percent of the costs of implementing conservation practices such as manure management facilities, that are important to improving and maintaining the health of the environment and natural resources. While EQIP may provide cost-share percentages of as much as 75 percent, each NRCS state office may determine its own percentage per conservation practice, within statutory limits. For example, an agency official from Hawaii explained that EQIP participants may receive the 75 percent maximum cost-share allowed in the program for 12 of 51 accepted conservation practices that have been determined to provide the greatest environmental benefits; these 12 practices include some that benefit threatened and endangered species such as fencing out feral animals and planting native trees. The remaining 39 practices are eligible for a 50 percent cost share. WHIP also provides cost-share payments and provides a higher level of cost-share assistance for those participants who enter into 15-year agreements and undertake projects in areas that NRCS has identified as essential habitat for certain species. A respondent from Ohio explained that sharing the cost of implementing conservation practices through WHIP has allowed producers to convert land that was unsuitable for farming to woodlands, which has helped wildlife by reducing land fragmentation in the state. Enhancement and incentive payments. Enhancement and incentive payments are additional types of financial benefits available in CRP, CSP, and EQIP. In general, enhancement and incentive payments provide a participant additional funding—beyond the annual or cost-share payments available in these programs—for implementing practices that can improve a resource condition beyond that which is required for program eligibility. Enhancement payments in some states focus on benefiting targeted species, as determined by USDA state officials or local stakeholders. For example, a NRCS local office in New Mexico—with support from a local EQIP working group and approval by the NRCS state conservationist— offers an annual incentive payment for landowners to defer grazing on enrolled lands that benefit the lesser prairie-chicken, a candidate species for listing under the Endangered Species Act. Similarly, according to an official in Colorado, enhancement payments are geared toward landowners whose projects benefit state-selected species of concern. Easement payments. Landowners can also receive payments by entering into easement agreements with USDA; easement payments can be made to participants in GRP and WRP. An easement under these programs essentially results in the landowner agreeing to how the enrolled land will be managed under the program for the length of the agreement in return for an easement payment. Compared to the temporary duration of the other financial incentives offered by USDA programs, what is most distinctive about easements is the long-term or permanent character of the restriction on future development of enrolled land. Two easement options are available under GRP and WRP—30 years or permanent. According to one respondent, the incentive to pursuing an easement is the long-term certainty that they will be adequately compensated for making habitat improvements. Under WRP, a participant agreeing to a permanent easement may also receive a higher cost-share percentage. Specifically, these participants may receive up to 100 percent of the cost needed to implement projects to enhance or restore wetlands. For these landowners, this combined financial incentive available under WRP—the permanent easement payment and higher than typical cost-share payments—can be helpful for giving them a return on land that is marginally productive.