Hennepin County Habitat Conservation Program - Phase 3
In partnership, Hennepin County and Minnesota Land Trust, will permanently protect, through conservation easement, 246 acres of the most important natural areas remaining in the county. We will also initiate habitat improvement activities on 513 acres of protected habitat.
Intense development pressure is a persistent threat to remaining habitat and undeveloped land in Hennepin County. This grant will allow this partnership to continue implementation of the conservation actions taken through Outdoor Heritage Fund grants awarded in 2018 and 2021 and keep up with high landowner demand.
The Twin Cities metro area is rapidly losing ecologically significant and floristically diverse habitat as land development pressure increases. MET Council estimates open space in Hennepin County to decline by 14,000 acres by 2040, resulting in immediate consequences for Species in Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN) which rely on critical habitats in Hennepin County.
Since 2018, Hennepin County and Minnesota Land Trust (MLT) have been awarded $4.6 million from the Outdoor Heritage Fund to support the goals of the Habitat Conservation Program (HCP). Across both phases, the partners have completed acquisition of 182 acres of easement, have an additional 364 acres poised for completion, and habitat improvement activities have been initiated on 76 acres of protected land. Phase 1 grant funds have been fully encumbered and will be spent by June 30, 2023.
HCP promotion, outreach, and proposal solicitation efforts have resulted in consistent landowner inquiries and high-quality easement opportunities. Easement projects in development will soon exhaust Phase 2 protection funding. Phase 3 funding is necessary to continue accepting and developing new projects and maintain program momentum.
The sophistication of our tools and our approach has grown along with our experience doing this work including:
-In-depth modeling of the entire county to identify priority focus areas.
-A growing focus on easement acquisitions with a restoration focus. Our interest in protecting the best remaining habitat remains, and we will continue to pursue those opportunities. We also know that buffering and connecting those areas and capitalizing on opportunities to create new habitat, is necessary and strategic to creating contiguous core habitat and corridors.
-New engagement and communication strategies devoted to connecting meaningfully with easement landowners and the public with the goal of instilling an understanding of each individual's unique role in lifelong stewardship of natural resources.
-A biological monitoring program to inventory wildlife and plant communities, measure and evaluate habitat improvement actions and inform adaptive management priorities, and report back meaningfully on the impact of our program's work on the species that use the protected and improved habitat.
During the period of 2020-2040, Hennepin County plans to add 6,000 acres of permanently protected habitat; resulting in permanent protection of 41 percent (or 24,600 acres) of the best remaining natural areas and the restorable corridors. Combined with our anticipated Phase 1 & 2 outputs, we will be 9% of the way to that goal with this proposal.
The county will continue to work with MLT, watershed organizations, cities, park districts, MN DNR, NPS, and USFWS to identify easement opportunities and build connections. MLT will bring the experience of its land protection and legal team to negotiate the purchase of conservation easements. An RFP approach will identify high value protection opportunities and encourage a competitive marketplace for scarce monetary resources. All opportunities for easement acquisition will be scored based on six categories: spatial context, size, habitat quality and diversity, water resources, wildlife and plant conservation, and risk of conversion. Management factors, partner involvement, and professional judgement will also be considered.
$4,649,000 the first year is to the commissioner of natural resources for agreements to acquire permanent conservation easements and to restore and enhance wildlife habitat in Hennepin County as follows: $1,687,000 to Hennepin County and $2,962,000 to Minnesota Land Trust. $216,000 of the amount to Minnesota Land Trust is to establish a monitoring and enforcement fund as approved in the accomplishment plan and subject to Minnesota Statutes, section 97A.056, subdivision 17. A list of proposed permanent conservation easements, restorations, and enhancements must be provided as part of the required accomplishment plan.
A network of natural land and riparian habitats will connect corridors for wildlife and species in greatest conservation need - With this request, 246 acres of the county's best remaining habitat will be permanently protected, buffered, and connected through 5-9 easement projects, and 513 more acres will be significantly improved through restoration or enhancement. To measure program impacts and inform adaptive management, Hennepin County staff initiated a biological monitoring program in 2022. Biomonitoring efforts include releve plots and transect surveys for birds and plants as well as wildlife surveys for pollinators, aquatic invertebrates, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals. By 2027, 5 years of data from this effort will be available to begin evaluating the efficacy of HCP work
Hennepin County, Landowners and NA