Introduction

The United States is a country blessed with great wealth, both economic and ecological. Our breadth of stunning landscapes is matched by the diversity of wildlife that is native to America. Yet many factors threaten to rob us of our unique wildlife heritage. Chief among these factors is the loss of habitat to resource development and suburban sprawl. The loss of habitat is the leading cause of species endangerment nationwide.

Much of the habitat needed to conserve the diversity of our wildlife heritage occurs on private lands. Efforts to identify habitat conservation needs in various parts of the country indicate that 15-30% of the land in any state or ecoregion will need to be in some form of conservation status in order for our native biodiversity to be effectively conserved. Fully half of the land identified in these efforts is privately owned. Private landowners therefore have a vital role to play in the conservation of our nation's wildlife heritage.

Buying all the private land needed to round out a national habitat conservation system is not likely the solution in the near term for several reasons. First, the one-time cost of such a scale of habitat acquisition (hundreds of billions of dollars) would potentially be prohibitive. Although the nation could probably afford an acquisition strategy if spread over several decades, there is also political resistance to increasing the amount of public lands, especially in some areas of the country, like the West, where public lands already comprise the bulk of lands in most states. Also, not all landowners are interested in selling their lands, even if they are interested in good habitat conservation. Consequently, incentive-based approaches to encouraging sound habitat conservation on selected lands will be an important part of the conservation toolkit for some time to come.

Incentives for landowners to manage land in particular ways have existed in this country for many years. Agricultural programs designed to stabilize farm prices provided landowners with commodity payments. Forest programs gave landowners financial assistance to increase timber production on their property. As public values have changed, however, from production to conservation, a shift in the types of incentive programs has also occurred. Today, a wide range of incentives are available to landowners who are interested in conserving a particular species, wetland or patch of forest on their property. Many states, for example, provide preferential tax treatment for lands subject to a conservation easement. The federal government also has several programs to help landowners improve their property for wildlife. Yet there is no single source of information available to understand the existing tapestry of incentive programs across the country.

In 1998, Defenders of Wildlife published a report entitled "National Stewardship Incentives: Conservation Strategies for U.S. Landowners." The report describes selected incentives and management recommendations for biodiversity conservation on private lands. A compilation of the full array of federal and state incentives in existence was the logical next step. This report is the result of our efforts to provide information about conservation incentives offered by state governments to private landowners. It contains a summary of our findings, including a breakdown of the different types of state governments incentives, examples of successful programs, recommendations and profiles of some of the conservation incentives available across the 50 states.

The results reveal that there is a wide array of incentives for habitat conservation on private land among state agencies. Increased funding, improved data collection, centralized information and coordinated planning are needed to boost the effectiveness and efficiency of these much-needed programs. Yet despite the needed changes, incentives are clearly an important mechanism to encourage voluntary conservation efforts.

Footnotes to the text are available in the body of the report.

Conservation in America: To read more, please download a pdf of this report. Also view state profiles pdf.