Accelerating the USFWS Habitat Conservation Easement Program - Phase IV
DU and PF will help accelerate USFWS wildlife habitat easements by restoring and enhancing 1,900 acres of protected private grasslands and wetlands in Minnesota's Prairie and Transition Sections. These are "working lands" under permanent federal conservation easements that allow delayed haying and/or grazing while protecting restored wetlands and prairie grasslands for nesting ducks, pheasants, and other wildlife. By restoring and enhancing protected grassland and wetland habitat while allowing for continued landowner use of these working private lands, USFWS habitat easements buffer existing protected lands and provide important conservation easement options that complement more restrictive easements and public lands.
Ducks Unlimited (DU) and Pheasants Forever (PF) will restore and enhance wetlands and prairie on private lands protected by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) in Minnesota through federal USFWS grassland habitat conservation easement. DU and PF will restore drained wetlands and cropland back to prairie grassland, and enhance existing habitats. USFWS currently has robust Migratory Bird Conservation Fund (MBCF) budgets to purchase habitat conservation easements, but these funds cannot be used to restore or enhance lands protected. By restoring grasslands and wetlands for USFWS with OHF support, DU and PF will effectively accelerate the rate at which USFWS can protect grassland and wetlands in key focus landscapes in which there are also many state and federal wildlife lands owned and managed in fee-title, and other lands protected by more restrictive conservation easements. These are some of the most productive landscapes in the state for breeding waterfowl and other prairie wildlife including pheasants, and these private working land conservation easements complement other federal, state, and private conservation easement options available to landowners.
USFWS habitat conservation easements not only include protection measures that prevent wetland/prairie conversion and land development/subdivision, but importantly, they also secure rights to restore wetlands and prairie grassland where feasible too - which is the primary purpose of this OHF easement program. DU and PF will restore and enhance private lands eased by USFWS in partnership with the USFWS with technical guidance from their private lands biologists and using private contractors to seed native prairie grass, remove trees, and restore wetlands. DU engineers will survey/design larger complex wetland restorations, and manage restoration contracts to private earth-moving firms. Importantly, as some of these "working private land" easements allow managed livestock grazing, some restoration and enhancement work will include paying contractors to remove old fences and install new fences to facilitate managed rotational grazing systems that protect grassland and wetlands habitats while improving wildlife habitat cover by limiting trees and invasive plants and providing landowners with the opportunity to actively manage/maintain their land.
USFWS "Habitat Easements" have been purchased here for over three decades, and are designed as a habitat protection conservation tool to complement public lands habitat complexes such as federal Waterfowl Production Areas and state Wildlife Management Areas, by keeping privately owned restored grassland and wetland habitat intact and on county tax rolls while allowing for working use of the land. These easements provide landowners with the option of either delayed haying (after July 15) or both grazing and delayed haying, which results in adequate habitat for wetland and upland nesting birds and a working land use option that appeals to some private landowners. Importantly, these working land easements also help manage plant succession on their land, which is critical to prevent the encroachment of volunteer trees and invasive plant species. Well-managed grazing, delayed haying, and USFWS prescribed fire also benefits those grassland bird species that prefer more open prairie habitats, such as northern pintail, marbled godwit, snipe, and many other prairie species.
$5,077,000 the first year is to the commissioner of natural resources for agreements to restore and enhance wetland and prairie habitat on habitat easements of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service as follows: $3,391,000 to Ducks Unlimited and $1,686,000 to Pheasants Forever. A list of proposed land restorations and enhancements must be provided as part of the required accomplishment plan.
Wetland and upland complexes will consist of native prairies, restored prairies, quality grasslands, and restored shallow lakes and wetlands - USFWS habitat easements will add restored and protected grassland and small wetland acres to augment existing public lands and other permanent easements to create prairie-wetland complexes with a more diverse mix of habitats and conservation options for private landowners. The measure of success will be the number of functioning prairie wetland complexes that provide adequate wetland and grassland acres within a landscape. This is a long-term, programmatic landscape conservation effort that will take time to achieve.
Expiring CRP lands are permanently protected - This outcome will be measured by the sheer number of expiring CRP acres that will be protected through USFWS easements, and the protected grassland and wetland habitat that will not be subject to future conversion to intensive row crop agriculture. By offering private landowners a working lands conservation easement option, landowners in need of an annual income stream from their land will be incentivized to keep grasslands intact and restore wetlands
USFWS In-kind staff and USFWS Migratory Bird Conservation Funds