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cross the United States, in places like Indiana, New York
In Tennessee, four years after The Nature Conservancy helped orchestrate a historic 127,000-acre land-protection deal on the Cumberland Plateau, the organization is still burdened by the weight of the debt it took on with reasonable expectations that the federal government would repay a chunk of it.
“After the drama that has played out over the past six months [in Congress], I’d be much more cautious about fashioning a deal like the northern Cumberlands again,” says Gina Hancock, the Conservancy’s state director in Tennessee. The organization worked with local, state and federal partners to protect the land on good faith that much of the Conservancy’s outlay would be repaid through federally funded Forest Legacy grants. But this year, amid the budget battles raging in Washington, D.C., the funding was touch-and-go, “held hostage by politics,” says Hancock, even though the project had support from the state’s congressional delegation.
Eventually, Congress approved a $3 million grant for 2011 for the Conservancy’s project. Even so, the process has given Hancock pause. “I think our entire land-conservation approach is now called into question,” she says. “I’m struggling with how to do future deals.”
That uncertainty is plaguing conservation work all over the country.
The Conservancy, adept at private conservation, also works in concert with public agencies at the state and federal levels to protect huge parcels. With money on hand, it can step in quickly to seize an opportunity, buying the land and buying time for federal and state agencies to assemble the required funds. The Conservancy then typically sells at least some of the property to the government agency and puts the recouped money toward the next deal. The ability to transfer some land to state and federal governments is critical to the Conservancy’s work because the organization can’t afford to own and manage all the land that it protects.
Conservation is expensive because land rarely comes cheap. But conservation is actually a minuscule fraction of overall federal spending. For example, in 2010, Congress appropriated $450 million of a $3.6 trillion budget—just 0.0125 percent—to the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The fund is a major land-acquisition program that is financed by royalties on offshore oil-drilling profits. These relatively small federal investments have been the cornerstone of the country’s conservation investments. And perhaps as significant, much of this work has been richly bipartisan.
In the 1990s, for instance, the Conservancy got involved in efforts to protect the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado. The 97,000-acre Baca Ranch seemed likely to hit the real estate market, and developers had proposed diverting the area’s groundwater, a scheme that would have undermined the valley’s unique ecology and threatened the viability of local farms. The community eventually sought the Conservancy’s help in buying the ranch and partnering with the feds to transform the land into a new national wildlife refuge and the country’s newest national park—Great Sand Dunes.
The project, which protected what lies above the ground as well as the precious water beneath, involved a bipartisan cast of characters: Colorado’s Republican governor and Democratic attorney general and a congressional delegation in Washington split between both parties, which included Democrat-turned-Republican Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell. In the White House, Bill Clinton started things and George W. Bush finished them. The Conservancy paid nearly $32 million to purchase the ranch and then transferred the land to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service.
“We have the ability to enter into transactions that the federal government can’t,” says Tom Cassidy, director of the Conservancy’s federal land programs. Besides agility and liquidity, he says, “we had the confidence to [make those transactions] because there is a federal revenue stream that is designed to fund land acquisition for the benefit of the people.”
In other words, the Conservancy had reasonably expected to recoup some of its costs in the Baca Ranch deal. Ultimately, the Conservancy recovered its entire payment for the property from the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
But the Conservancy’s confidence in pursuing some large deals has been shaken amid the current budget battle on Capitol Hill, where federal conservation programs have become a favorite target.
“The deficit is real and unsustainable, and something has got to give,” says Bob Bendick, the Conservancy’s director of U.S. government relations. “Conservation should shoulder a proportional share,” he adds, “but not be singled out for wildly disproportionate cuts.”
Says Jody Kaulukukui of the Conservancy in Hawaii, “The huge question mark hovering over federal funding is going to change how and whether we can structure deals.” She is already predicting that her state will be doing fewer land-protection deals and will take longer to complete its conservation work.
“If federal funding becomes nonexistent or highly uncertain,” says Kaulukukui, “that totally changes the discussion.”
That discussion heated up in February, when the U.S. House of Representatives proposed a budget that took aim at federal funding for conservation. The Conservancy and many other groups became engaged in what Bendick calls “an unprecedented struggle over the future of America’s land, air, water and wildlife.”
Some of the most extreme cuts in the original bill were to land-acquisition programs: All funding was to be stripped from the Wetlands Reserve and Conservation Stewardship programs, the cornerstones of working-lands conservation in agricultural regions. A 90 percent cut to the Land and Water Conservation Fund would have disrupted major Conservancy projects in Montana’s Crown of the Continent region, Oregon’s Hells Canyon and along the Connecticut River, just for starters. Complete elimination of state and tribal wildlife grants, as proposed, would have ended years of research used to help keep game species common. Funding for the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, which has so far protected 25 million acres and pulled in more than $2 billion in matching private contributions, was also eliminated.
“We have the ability to enter into transactions that the federal government can’t,” says Tom Cassidy, director of the Conservancy’s federal land programs. Besides agility and liquidity, he says, “we had the confidence to [make those transactions] because there is a federal revenue stream that is designed to fund land acquisition for the benefit of the people.”
In other words, the Conservancy had reasonably expected to recoup some of its costs in the Baca Ranch deal. Ultimately, the Conservancy recovered its entire payment for the property from the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
But the Conservancy’s confidence in pursuing some large deals has been shaken amid the current budget battle on Capitol Hill, where federal conservation programs have become a favorite target.
“The deficit is real and unsustainable, and something has got to give,” says Bob Bendick, the Conservancy’s director of U.S. government relations. “Conservation should shoulder a proportional share,” he adds, “but not be singled out for wildly disproportionate cuts.”
Says Jody Kaulukukui of the Conservancy in Hawaii, “The huge question mark hovering over federal funding is going to change how and whether we can structure deals.” She is already predicting that her state will be doing fewer land-protection deals and will take longer to complete its conservation work.
“If federal funding becomes nonexistent or highly uncertain,” says Kaulukukui, “that totally changes the discussion.”
That discussion heated up in February, when the U.S. House of Representatives proposed a budget that took aim at federal funding for conservation. The Conservancy and many other groups became engaged in what Bendick calls “an unprecedented struggle over the future of America’s land, air, water and wildlife.”
Some of the most extreme cuts in the original bill were to land-acquisition programs: All funding was to be stripped from the Wetlands Reserve and Conservation Stewardship programs, the cornerstones of working-lands conservation in agricultural regions. A 90 percent cut to the Land and Water Conservation Fund would have disrupted major Conservancy projects in Montana’s Crown of the Continent region, Oregon’s Hells Canyon and along the Connecticut River, just for starters. Complete elimination of state and tribal wildlife grants, as proposed, would have ended years of research used to help keep game species common. Funding for the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, which has so far protected 25 million acres and pulled in more than $2 billion in matching private contributions, was also eliminated.
“Everyone is supportive of the idea that we have to live within our means,” says Chris Wood, executive director of Trout Unlimited. “But these are small-scale investments that yield significant conservation benefits and societal benefits.” Making those cuts wouldn’t begin to chip away at the deficit, he argues.
That draconian bill never passed. In April, Congress finally reached a compromise and passed last year’s budget. The cuts to conservation funding were modified, but still deep. For example, the Land and Water Conservation Fund was sliced by more than one-third from its fiscal 2010 level to $300 million in the final 2011 budget agreement.
Such cuts will affect the country’s natural resources for years to come, says the Conservancy’s Bendick. But the stakes get even higher following Congress’ summer recess, when lawmakers tackle the coming fiscal year’s budget. Legislation already passed by one House subcommittee proposes significant cuts. President Obama, along with legislators on both sides of the aisle and in both houses, are promising a robust debate.
Will the voice of conservation be heard amid the line-item giants of Defense, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? There is a real danger that conservation could simply drop off the ledger, replaced by zeros.
“We are now at a point where for the first time, our conservation and environmental success could be reversed,” says Bendick. “We’re at that crossroads. Which way is this country going to go?”
“What we really worry about,” says Glenn Prickett, head of external affairs for the Conservancy, “is throwing out decades’ worth of conservation investments that have had very strong bipartisan support all across the country and that are actually working in the interest of the economy and of working Americans.”
Prickett argues that while the nation debates the proper role and size of the federal government, the Conservancy and its members and partners must continue to argue for a strong federal role in safeguarding our environment.
“Conservation and management of natural resources have been an important role of the federal government for more than 100 years,” says Prickett. “We need to be making a strong case that that continues to be an important role for the federal government.”
That draconian bill never passed. In April, Congress finally reached a compromise and passed last year’s budget. The cuts to conservation funding were modified, but still deep. For example, the Land and Water Conservation Fund was sliced by more than one-third from its fiscal 2010 level to $300 million in the final 2011 budget agreement.
Such cuts will affect the country’s natural resources for years to come, says the Conservancy’s Bendick. But the stakes get even higher following Congress’ summer recess, when lawmakers tackle the coming fiscal year’s budget. Legislation already passed by one House subcommittee proposes significant cuts. President Obama, along with legislators on both sides of the aisle and in both houses, are promising a robust debate.
Will the voice of conservation be heard amid the line-item giants of Defense, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? There is a real danger that conservation could simply drop off the ledger, replaced by zeros.
“We are now at a point where for the first time, our conservation and environmental success could be reversed,” says Bendick. “We’re at that crossroads. Which way is this country going to go?”
“What we really worry about,” says Glenn Prickett, head of external affairs for the Conservancy, “is throwing out decades’ worth of conservation investments that have had very strong bipartisan support all across the country and that are actually working in the interest of the economy and of working Americans.”
Prickett argues that while the nation debates the proper role and size of the federal government, the Conservancy and its members and partners must continue to argue for a strong federal role in safeguarding our environment.
“Conservation and management of natural resources have been an important role of the federal government for more than 100 years,” says Prickett. “We need to be making a strong case that that continues to be an important role for the federal government.”
