Texas Environmental Almanac, Chapter 4, Wildlife, Page 5

WILDLIFE HABITAT CONSERVATION ACTIVITIES AND ACQUISITIONS

There are a number of on-going public-private partnerships and country-to-country cooperative arrangements aimed at preserving the rich wetlands found in Texas. Landowner participation in these efforts is voluntary, however, and their success will depend on this participation increasing.

The North American Waterfowl Management Plan was signed in 1986 by the Canadian and United States governments. Mexico has also signed an agreement to assist in this effort. The plan's goal is to preserve 6 million acres of wetlands and to increase North America's waterfowl population to more than 100 million birds by the year 2000. Partnerships of public and private organizations work toward the goal of wetland preservation by purchasing or leasing wetlands or using conservation easements. Farm owners are provided economic incentives to strengthen wildlife habitats. Two of the nine joint ventures currently underway are targeting the playa lakes of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado and the Gulf of Mexico coast stretching from Texas to Alabama.

Other public and private initiatives being carried out to protect, maintain, manage and restore wildlife habitat in Texas include the following:

• Texas Parks and Wildlife and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation are assisting eight landowners in the Texas Panhandle and South Plains to enhance wildlife habitat. The projects are cost-shared, 50-50, by the landowner and the foundation.

• The Texas Department of Transportation is purchasing bottomland hardwood acreage as potential mitigation banking credits. In other words, foreseeing that it might in the future destroy wetlands during highway construction, the Department of Transportation is purchasing bottomland hardwoods to compensate and substitute for any acreage it might destroy. (See focus piece on Mitigation for further discussion.)

• The Wetlands Reserve Program of the 1990 Farm Bill offers landowners payments for restoring and protecting wetlands on their property. In 1994, $66.75 million was allocated to 20 states, including Texas, to enroll 75,000 acres. Under the program, owners of farm wetlands voluntarily sell permanent easements of farmed wetlands that were converted to farmland prior to December 23, 1985 (prior to the enactment of the 1985 Farm Bill). Farmers get a lump sum equaling no more than the fair market price of the farmland and a cost share payment to assist them in implementing a wetland restoration plan. As of July 1994, Texas had no Wetland Reserve participants; however, approximately 20 Texas farmers have submitted offers to the national Agriculture Stabilization Conservation Service office and are awaiting determination.(41)

• U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Texas Parks and Wildlife, Agriculture Stabilization and Conservation Service and Ducks Unlimited created the Texas Prairie Wetlands Project to provide technical assistance and financial incentives to farmers and ranchers interested in improving or restoring wetland habitats along the Gulf Coast. Through January 1994, 4,901 acres of wetland projects had been completed or were under construction for 30 landowners. Another 132 landowners controlling 1,231,023 acres had received on-site technical assistance.(42)

• Since 1976, Texas Parks and Wildlife biologists have provided technical assistance on ecosystem management to private landowners with 100 acres or more. During fiscal year 1993, 625 technical assistance agreements, representing 6.2 million acres, had been signed between landowners and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

• * Mitigation efforts are also helping to offset the destruction of valuable wildlife habitat. The exact acreage of wildlife habitat that has been preserved through mitigation is difficult to determine because there is no monitoring of the process. (See focus segment on Mitigation for further explanation of this process.)

The table on page 130 shows wildlife acreage in Texas that the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) plans to acquire in the near future.(43) The majority of planned acquisitions are additions to existing wildlife sanctuaries. They do not represent new refuges. The term "remaining" refers to those acres that USFWS plans to acquire if granted Congressional appropriations to do so.

INFORMATION AND INCENTIVES FOR WILDLIFE HABITAT PROTECTION

Many resource planners, environmentalists and landowners are looking toward a community planning process and various financial and tax incentives for private landowners as the means of habitat preservation. With 97 percent of all land held privately, an incentives approach seems reasonable. The following are some ideas that have been compiled by the Defenders of Wildlife, a national environmental organization: (44)

• Tax Incentives and Disincentives -
  1. Local and state property taxes paid on lands providing habitat for endangered, threatened and candidate species and for significant biodiversity would be offset by an annual federal tax credit. Landowners would develop a Habitat Management Plan in cooperation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

  2. Federal tax credits for expenses assumed for improving or creating new habitat for endangered, threatened and candidate species.

  3. Income tax deductions for revenue from lands managed to support endangered species.

  4. Tax penalties for converting wildlife habitat to some other use.

  5. Prohibition on the use of federal subsidies and tax benefits for activities causing the loss or degradation of endangered species habitat.

• Endangered Species Act's Habitat Conservation Plan - Section 10(a) of the Endangered Species Act provides for residential and commercial development within an area that has endangered or threatened species habitat whenever a habitat conservation plan is submitted and accepted by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. As of 1994, eight habitat conservation plans - the majority in California - have been accepted by the Service. The Balcones Canyonlands Habitat Conservation Plan is in the process for the Austin area.

• Cooperative Conservation Plan - rural agricultural landowners, who are not interested in developing their land, with contiguous or nearly contiguous property would be able to form cooperatives to accomplish the same goals as the ESA Habitat Conservation Plan without having to participate in an ESA Habitat Conservation Plan. The cooperative would operate as a wildlife management cooperative.

• Habitat Transaction Method - The objective is to preserve habitats sufficient to sustain species and/or populations addressed by a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP). A process is established for measuring the conservation value of all the land in the planning area covered by the HCP. Any landowner who agrees to conserve or restore habitat within the planning area receives credits based on the conservation value that the landowner adds to the reserve system. Landowners who receive credits for conservation actions may either use the credits to develop elsewhere within the planning area or sell the credits to any other landowner who needs credits to compensate for project impacts.

• Biodiversity Trust Fund - This proposal suggests that the "takings" provision of the Endangered Species Act be complemented and eventually replaced by a biodiversity trust fund. The trust fund would provide landowners with incentives to protect endangered and threatened species and ecosystems. As author Randall O'Toole envisions it, 10 percent of all public land user fees would be dedicated to the fund each year. A board of trustees nominated by the President and other Cabinet officials would administer the fund. The fund must improve biodiversity or protect endangered or threatened species. Eligible activities for funding include purchase of land, purchases of conservation easements, paying landowners to use certain habitat preservation practices and paying "bounties" to landowners whose land provides breeding habitat for threatened or endangered species.

In Texas, 12 million acres of prairie land used to extend from San Antonio to Oklahoma. Today, there is less than 1 percent left. Efforts are being made to save what little there is. Students at Gattis Elementary School in the city of Round Rock are trying to preserve 20 acres of blackland prairie where 200 to 300 species of wildflowers and grasses thrive near their school.

ECO-TOURISM

In 1993, Governor Ann Richards formed the Governor's Task Force on Nature Tourism in Texas. The Task Force is charged with helping local communities and private landowners develop passive wildlife programs to conserve both wildlife habitat and to stimulate economic growth through environmentally based tourism. The Executive Director of Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Executive Director of the Texas Department of Commerce co-chair the task force.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service reports that Americans spent $18 billion in 1991 on wildlife-related travel items. During that same year, Texans spent nearly $1 billion dollars on food, lodging and expenses for various wildlife-viewing activities. In Southeast Texas near Houston, a study conducted in 1992 at High Island bird sanctuary concluded that 6,000 bird watchers spent about $1.2 million to see songbirds.(45)

Though nature tourism holds the promise for economic development for local communities, it also has the potential to damage the very environments and the local communities meant to benefit. Several books have been written on how to minimize the threats that nature tourists have on natural areas and habitats. Two are: Policies for Maximizing Nature Tourism's Ecological and Economic Benefits, written by Kreg Lindberg and published by the World Resources Institute and Nature Tourism: Managing for the Environment, edited by Tensie Whelan and published by Island Press.

The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds sells about 300,000 copies a year in two editions. (Source: Sarah Lyall, "Publishers' Aces in the

Hole: Books That Sell Well Quietly," The New York Times, August 1, 1994, 1.)

A report entitled Nature Tourism in the Lone Star State: Economic Opportunities in Nature is available from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Texas Environmental Almanac, Chapter 4, Wildlife, Page 5

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