Tools for Implementation

There are a variety of tools that can be used to protect habitat and biodiversity at the local level. Acquisition, regulatory, and incentives mechanisms can effectively protect biodiversity in developed areas and on working landscapes, such as ranches, farms, and private forests. Working landscapes can promote conservation while maintaining the land's economic value and forestalling the type of intense development that destroys or fragments natural habitats. In addition, long-term adaptive management is essential for monitoring and updating conservation strategies and management techniques.

Acquisition

Sometimes the most effective solution to protect habitat is to buy it. Often ownership simplifies land management and potentially provides permanent protection of the habitat. From 1998 to 2002, the American public approved approximately $23 billion for open space purchases through various ballot measures across the country. Although not all of these funds have been or will be applied towards habitat purchases, this level of support demonstrates the importance of acquisition in protecting open spaces for present and future generations. Common habitat acquisition tools include fee simple purchases, conservation easements, and transfers of development rights.

Fee Simple Purchase

Acquiring land through a fee simple purchase gives the new owner "full title to and possession of all rights associated with the purchased property, subject only to the constraints imposed by nuisance laws and valid public regulations, including zoning and subdivision" (Duerksen et al. 1997). Fee simple ownership provides one of the most effective and straightforward means of protecting habitat because the owner controls all land use decisions. Once fee simple ownership is attained, the new owner may restrict land uses, lease the land, or manage the land and control the rights related to the property in a manner that is compatible with habitat conservation objectives (Duerksen et al. 1997). Several groups, like The Nature Conservancy, Trust for Public Land, and local land trusts, specialize in this work. Often, these groups can act much faster than government entities, and may transfer management of the land to an appropriate agency at some point in the future.

There are a variety of federal, state, local, and private funding sources for land acquisition. For example, the Land and Water Conservation Fund provides funding from offshore oil and gas leasing for the acquisition of land for conservation. Over the last 35 years, this fund has added hundreds of new properties to the U.S. reserve network.

Some purchases have expanded wildlife refuges in urban areas. For example, the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge near the city of Sherwood, Oregon, is a wetland restoration project created by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Ducks Unlimited, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and Metro (regional government). Only 20 miles from Portland, the project started with a former dairy farm on a 100-year flood plain. It includes extensive seasonal wetlands and permanent marshes and provides important habitat for waterfowl, shorebirds, and native fish.

Easements

A conservation easement is a legal agreement between a landowner and another entity, such as a government agency, land trust, or conservation organization, that permanently limits land uses of the property in order to protect conservation values. The details of an easement are flexible and depend on the landowner's needs and the resources found on the property. Generally, an easement requires a landowner to relinquish some rights associated with the land while retaining others. For example, a landowner may give up the right to subdivide or develop the land, while continuing to grow crops. The easement allows the landowner to continue to own and use the property while ensuring some level of protection. The easement terms apply to all future owners of the property. Landowners may also benefit from income, property, and estate tax reductions.

Regulation

Local officials might consider taking a broad and creative view of how zoning ordinances and other local land use laws and regulations may be used to conserve biodiversity. Zoning laws and regulations can help conserve natural habitats, although not necessarily by establishing preserves, or they can undermine biodiversity by increasing habitat fragmentation. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has assembled a collection of model and real-life ordinances that protect local resources.

Zoning

Zoning determines the type of activities allowed on certain areas of the landscape. It originated in the nineteenth century to protect residential areas from industrial pollution. Since then it has been applied extensively-in some cases without much consideration for community planning.

Zoning can be modified to allow protection of sensitive areas or to designate natural hazard areas, such as flood plains. Using zoning to protect natural resources is particularly important in urbanized areas that have zoning laws already established. Rural areas may lack zoning or planning agencies, but with properly designed zoning ordinances, they can protect significant habitat and wildlife corridors.

If used strategically, zoning can be extremely useful in conservation, especially where purchasing land for preservation is neither possible nor desired. There is, however, an ongoing debate over the merits of upzoning and downzoning. Upzoning increases density (by allowing more lots per acre) and is generally favored by smart growth advocates as a way to contain sprawl. Downzoning decreases density (by allowing more acreage per lot) and has been used by many communities to protect open space from being overdeveloped. Because it is thought to discourage ranches and farms from being divided and subdivided, downzoning is most commonly applied when communities seek to preserve agricultural land from development.

Either scenario, however, may have an adverse impact on wildlife and biodiversity. Dense development in ecologically sensitive areas can eliminate wildlife habitat completely. Also, if not managed properly, farms and ranches can contribute to habitat degradation. Historically, wildlife has rarely been considered in rezoning, but regional or statewide conservation planning can help change this situation.

In many developed communities, zoning may be the best and only option for protecting the area's remaining wildlife habitat. The Metropolitan Conservation Alliance, a program of the Wildlife Conservation Society based in the New York City metropolitan area, has successfully negotiated special zoning to protect native wildlife and biodiversity in a number of communities.

Incentives

Regulatory approaches may not always be effective or popular. Acquisition is expensive and depends on willing property sellers. Conservation incentives may be a useful alternative to protect habitat on private lands. In general, incentive programs encourage private landowners to adopt improved land management practices to conserve biodiversity (Vickerman 1997). Types of incentives include tax relief, direct payments, educational and technical assistance, regulatory relief, market-based incentives, and recognition programs. Many states, for example, provide preferential tax treatment for lands subject to a conservation easement (George 2002).

Advocates of conservation incentive programs suggest that such programs are cost effective and more proactive and politically viable than traditional legal approaches. What's more, the programs may improve relationships among all parties involved, including landowners and conservation officials, and enhance the environmental awareness of landowners and other citizens (Noah and Zhang 2001). For more information about incentives, visit Defenders' incentives section.

Transfer of Development Rights

A transfer of development rights program is a tool for discouraging development in one area while encouraging it in another. Generally, a local government agency manages the transfer of development rights program and provides the necessary planning by applying zoning and density regulations. The government agency targets an area for protection, called the "sending zone," and identifies an area where more development is preferred, called the "receiving zone." A landowner or developer purchases development rights from property owners in the "sending zone" and relocates and applies the rights to the "receiving zone." This process increases the density in the "receiving zone" and allows the developer to make more of a profit on the development project by paying less on and making more efficient use of the infrastructure needed, such as utilities, water, and roads. Meanwhile development is less of a threat in the "sending zone" since the transferred development rights are permanently removed, allowing density to remain low. Allowing the regulated amount of development to drift from one area to another, a transfer of development rights program accommodates both development interests and conservation interests. By carefully choosing sending and receiving zones, transfer of development rights programs can be effective in protecting ecologically sensitive areas.

Adaptive Management

Adaptive management is the practice of continuously collecting and monitoring data to review and update management strategies. Monitoring results can be analyzed and evaluated to improve future efforts. Adaptive management can provide more dynamic decision-making, resulting in more rapid changes.

Adaptive management programs must be valued and funded for their long-term impact. Often because of short term funding, programs end before enough data to show meaningful results is collected. Urban wildlife managers often report that they do not have the time to monitor their activities. If they did have time, they could discover the best wildlife management techniques and, ultimately, save city resources. With the high amount of species at risk, designing monitoring schemes may seem daunting. But in the growing field of urban ecology, many opportunities exist to forge relationships with faculty from universities and to stimulate new research. With the promise of extensive research and so many variables to habitat protection in urban systems, adaptive management and monitoring can help determine success in biodiversity protection.