The Conservation Almanac covers land area conservation activity across the United States from 1998-2005. The project grew out of the many requests The Trust for Public Land has received for data to understand the "context" for land conservation and the growing conservation finance movement. Elected officials, journalists, foundations and others want to know things like:

1. How much land has been protected in my state?
2. Which state and federal agencies have protected lands in the state?
3. With all the new money being created for land conservation, what kind of impact are we getting?
4. What policies and programs might help us make progress in reaching our conservation objectives?

Please email us at almanac@tpl.org if you have any questions or suggestions.

 

What Elements are Included?

1. Total acres for each state, and acres that have been conserved within the state as of December 31, 2005;
2. Land conservation activity, both acres acquired (fee title and conservation easement) and dollors spent from 1998 through 2005 (Please refer to www.conservationalmanac.org for information on Methodology)
3. A profile of the state's land conservation programs; and
4. A discussion of the state's policy framework 

Finally, though most federal programs are covered in the Conservation Almanac, there are several smaller sources of federal funding for land conservation that are not included in this iteration of the Conservation Almanac for reasons that include: 

1. Data not in existence during the snapshot time period
2. Lack of reliable data
3. Not funded during the snapshot period

Jump to a State Profile

Mid-Atlantic:

From 1998 through 2005, 2.1 million acres of land were conserved in the Mid-Atlantic region; by both states and the federal government. The states acquired approximately 87 percent of the total.  Forty four percent of these lands were purchased in fee title, while the remainder was protected through conservation easements. The Mid-Atlantic region state government expended almost $3 billion in this time period for land conservation (90 percent of total expenditures), while the federal government spent $308 million. In other words, on an annual basis, the states spent an average of $366 million to conserve lands (at an average cost of $1,600 an acre) while the federal government expended an average of $38.4 million a year (at an average cost of $1,100 per acre).

Midwest: 

From 1998 through 2005, almost 2.4 million acres of land were conserved in the Midwest region; by both states and the federal government. The state acquired approximately 46 percent of the total. Almost 45 percent of these lands were purchased in fee title, while the remainder was protected through conservation easements. The Midwest region state government expended over $1.2 billion in this time period for land conservation (80 percent of total expenditures), while the federal government spent $321 million. In other words, on an annual basis, the states spent an average of $155 million to conserve lands (at an average cost of $1,100 an acre) while the federal government expended an average of $40 million a year (at an average cost of $247 per acre).

New England:

From 1998 through 2005, 1.3 million acres of land were conserved in the New England region; by both states and the federal government. The state acquired approximately 63 percent of the total.  Almost 46 percent of these lands were purchased in fee title, while the remainder was protected through conservation easements. The New England region state government expended about $717 million in this time period for land conservation (73 percent of total expenditures), while the federal government spent $268 million. In other words, on an annual basis, the states spent an average of $90 million to conserve lands (at an average cost of $903 an acre) while the federal government expended an average of $33.5 million a year (at an average cost of $56 per acre).

Southeast 

From 1998 through 2005, almost 4 million acres of land were conserved in the Southeast region; by both states and the federal government. The state acquired approximately 66 percent of the total.  Almost 85 percent of these lands were purchased in fee title, while the remainder was protected through conservation easements. The Southeast region state government expended almost $5 billion in this time period for land conservation (89 percent of total expenditures), while the federal government spent almost $609 million. In other words, on an annual basis, the states spent an average of $605 million to conserve lands (at an average cost of approximately $2,000 an acre) while the federal government expended an average of $76 million a year (at an average cost of $472 per acre).

Southwest 

From 1998 through 2005, almost 2 million acres of land were conserved in the Southwest region; by both states and the federal government. The state acquired approximately 6 percent of the total. Almost 98 percent of these lands were purchased in fee title, while the remainder was protected through conservation easements. The Southwest region state government expended over $143 million in this time period for land conservation (36 percent of total expenditures), while the federal government spent $251 million. In other words, on an annual basis, the states spent an average of about $18 million to conserve lands (at an average cost of $1,300 an acre) while the federal government expended an average of $31.3 million a year (at an average cost of $140 per acre).

Rocky Mountain: 

From 1998 through 2005, almost 5 million acres of land were conserved in the Rocky Mountain region; by both states and the federal government. The state acquired approximately 22 percent of the total.  Eighty percent of these lands were purchased in fee title, while the remainder was protected through conservation easements. The Rocky Mountain region state government expended about $489 million in this time period for land conservation (59 percent of total expenditures), while the federal government spent $345 million. In other words, on an annual basis, the states spent an average of $61 million to conserve lands (at an average cost of $452 an acre) while the federal government expended an average of $43 million a year (at an average cost of $90 per acre).

West:

From 1998 through 2005, 3.4 million acres of land were conserved in the West region; by both states and the federal government. The state acquired approximately 45 percent of the total. Almost 86 percent of these lands were purchased in fee title, while the remainder was protected through conservation easements. The West region state government expended over $3.1 billion in this time period for land conservation (80 percent of total expenditures), while the federal government spent $792 million. In other words, on an annual basis, the states spent an average of $384 million to conserve lands (at an average cost of about $2,000 an acre) while the federal government expended an average of $99 million a year (at an average cost of $414 per acre).

National Overview:

As of 2005, state and federal agencies conserved approximately 21 percent of the total land base, or over 473.6 million acres, which averages to approximately 1.6 acres of land, conserved for each resident. However, in the face of unprecedented population growth, the number of acres per capita is bound to decrease significantly in the coming years.

From 1998 through 2005, 18.4 million acres of land were conserved in the United States; by both states and the federal government in approximately equal proportions (about 9 million acres each). Almost two-thirds (72 percent) of these lands were purchased in fee title, while the remainder was protected through conservation easements. States expended over $13 billion in this time period for land conservation (89 percent of total expenditures), while the federal government spent $1.5 billion. In other words, on an annual basis, the states spent an average of $1.6 billion to conserve lands (at an average cost of $1,500 an acre) while the federal government expended an average of $136.5 million a year (at an average cost of $750 per acre).

Within the Conservation Almanac, conservation lands or acreage constitutes lands removed from the inventory of developable lands and, as much as possible, lands removed from the inventory of lands available for commercial and/or intensive use. The acreage and cost data included in the Conservation Almanac is through the end of 2005.

Compare Tool = All data fields presented in the comparison tool represent both federal and state figures.

Baseline Acres = Total acres conserved as of 2005 by the State or Region's land conservation programs or agencies.

Fee Simple Purchase = Outright purchase of land from a willing landowner

Conservation Easement = A conservation easement is a voluntary agreement that allows a landowner to limit the type or amount of development on their property while retaining private ownership of the land.

Why A Conservation Almanac?

• To Create a Definitive Source of Conservation Information
• To Inform the Development of State and Local Policies in Support of Land Conservation
• To Provide Critical Background Information for Elected Officials Policymakers, the Media, Citizen Activists, and Researchers.

What Questions Does The Conservation Almanac Address?

• "What are other places doing to achieve their conservation goals?"
• "Are there any benchmarks to inform our work?"
• "What policies and programs might help us make progress in reaching our conservation objectives?"

What Are The Components of The Conservation Almanac?

• State Conservation Achievements
• Profile of State Programs and Funding Mechanisms
• State Policy Framework
• LandVote^® Data and Maps
• Federal Funding Analysis
• Analytic Tools

What Types Of Data Does The Conservation Almanac Contain?

• How Many Total Acres are conserved Under State/Federal Ownership
• 50-State Land Acquisition Data Snapshot- 1998-2005
• Acres Acquired (fee vs. easement) for Conservation
• State Dollars Spent Annually on Conservation
• Federal Conservation Spending

Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), Department of the Interior (varies by agency)

Created in 1965, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) is the largest source of federal money for park, wildlife, and open space land acquisition.  Specifically, the LWCF provides funding to assist in the acquiring, preserving, developing and assuring accessibility to outdoor recreation resources, including but not limited to open space, parks, trails, wildlife lands and other lands and facilities desirable for individual active participation.  The program’s funding comes primarily from offshore oil and gas drilling receipts, with an authorized expenditure of $900 million each year, while federal recreation fees, sales of federal surplus real property, and federal motorboat fuel taxes fund also contribute to the LWCF.  Under this program, a portion of the money is intended to go to federal land purchases and a portion to the states as matching grants for land protection projects. 

LWCF - Federal Department of the Interior

The federal side of the Land and Water Conservation Fund provides funding for federal agencies (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, and the Bureau of Land Management) to protect  land within existing recreation areas, parks, forests, refuges and other federal units.  LWCF funding provides the bulk of the money available for this purpose.  

Bureau of Land Management

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) was established in 1946 and is responsible for carrying out a variety of programs for the management and conservation of resources on 258 million surface acres, as well as 700 million acres of subsurface mineral estate.  In the Conservation Almanac we include the following BLM lands from The National Landscape Conservation System as permanently conserved lands: National Conservation Areas, National Monuments, Cooperative Management, Protection Areas, National Recreation Areas, Outstanding Natural Areas, Forest Reserves, Wilderness Areas, Wilderness Study Areas, Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACECs).

Fish and Wildlife Service

 The National Wildlife Refuge System of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), established over 100 years ago, has grown to nearly 96 million acres.  It now includes more than 540 refuges and more than 3,000 waterfowl production areas spread across the 50 states and several U.S. territories.

National Park Service

The National Park Service was created in 1916 and now comprises 392 parks covering more than 84 million acres in every state (except Delaware), the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.  These areas include national parks, monuments, battlefields, military parks, historical parks, historic sites, lakeshores, seashores, recreation areas, scenic rivers and trails, and the White House.

U.S. Forest Service, Department of Agriculture 

The U.S. Forest Service was established in 1905 and is an agency of the Department of Agriculture.  At present, it is comprised of 155 national forests, 20 national grasslands, five national monuments, the National Tallgrass Prairie, and six land utilization projects.  These units are located in 44 states, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, and encompass over 193 million acres.

LWCF - Stateside, National Park Service 

The stateside LWCF program provides a 50 percent match to states for planning, developing and acquiring land and water areas for natural resource protection and recreation enhancement.  Funds are distributed to states based on population and need. Once the funds are distributed to the states, it is up to each state to choose the projects, though the National Park Service has final approval. Eligible grant recipients include municipal subdivisions, state agencies and tribal governments, each of whom must provide at least 50 percent matching funds in either cash or in-kind contributions and a detailed plan for the proposed project. 

The North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

The North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) was passed in 1989 to provide matching grants for the acquisition, restoration, and enhancement of wetland ecosystems for the benefit of waterfowl and other wetland dependent migratory species.  Administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, grants are available to nonprofit organizations, state and local agencies, tribes, and private individuals in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.  Two types of grants are awarded; small grants for up to $75,000 and standard grants for up to $1 million.  There is a 1:1 non-federal match requirement for each grant although the average match of successful proposals is over 2:1.

Migratory Bird Conservation Fund, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Each year, duck stamp (migratory bird and conservation stamps) revenues are deposited into the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund along with appropriations from the Wetlands Loan Act of 1961, import duties from arms and ammunitions, receipts from refuge admission fees, receipts from the sale of refuge-land crops and refuge rights-of-way, and Federal Aid funds.  Administered by the USFWS, the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund is used to acquire waterfowl breeding, wintering, and migration habitat needed for maintaining optimum migratory bird population levels and to achieve desirable migration and distribution patterns.  The habitat areas, acquired in fee, easement, or other interests such as leases or cooperative agreements, become units of the National Wildlife Refuge System or Waterfowl Production Areas. 

National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grants, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Established by the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection, and Restoration Act of 1990, the National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant Program is a matching grant program administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to acquire, restore, and enhance the wetland ecosystems of coastal states and territories.  Projects in states bordering the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific, and Great Lakes are eligible for funding of up to $1 million per fiscal year.  The one exception is the state of Louisiana, which has its own coastal wetland program administered under the Act.  Projects are given priority if consistent with the criteria and considerations outlined in the National Wetlands Priority Conservation Plan; are located in states with dedicated funding programs to acquire coastal wetlands and open spaces; are located in maritime forests on barrier islands; benefit endangered species; encourage cooperative efforts among diverse partnerships; and benefit other ongoing conservation efforts.

Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund,  U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Grants offered through the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund (authorized under section 6 of the Endangered Species Act) support participation in a wide array of voluntary conservation projects for candidate, proposed, and listed species.

HCP Land Acquisition Grants

Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) Land Acquisition Grants provide funding to states and territories explicitly for land acquistions that complement approved HCPs.  These grants are available only for land puchases that go above and beyond the conservation responsibilites that nonfederal partners already bear under the terms of the HCP.  Specifically, the grants fund land acquisitions that complement but do not replace private mitigation responsibilities contained in HCPs; have important benefits for listed, proposed, and candidate species; and that have important benefits for the ecosystems that support those species.

Recovery Land Acquisition Grants

Recovery Land Acquisition Grants provide funds to states and territories for the acquisition of habitat, through both fee and easement, in support of federally listed threatened and endangered species recovery.  These funds must contribute to the implementation of a finalized and approved recovery plan for at least one species under the Endangered Species Act.

USDA Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program (FRPP)

USDA Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program (FRPP) was established in1985 and provides matching funds to assist in the purchase of development rights to keep productive farm and ranch land in agricultural use.  Grants are awarded by the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) to states, local governments and non-governmental entities on a competitive basis, according to national and state criteria and require up to a 50 percent non-NRCS match to cover the cost of the easement.  Up to 25 percent of donated land value can be counted as the match.

Forest Legacy Program (FLP), U.S. Forest Service

The Forest Legacy Program (FLP) was established in 1990 to provide federal funding to states to assist in securing conservation easements on forestlands threatened with conversion to non-forest uses.  Fee transactions are also used under the program, either for the whole transaction or combined with easements to achieve a state's highest conservation goals.  A state voluntarily enters the program by submitting an Assessment of Need (AON) to the Secretary of Agriculture for approval.  These plans establish the lead state agency, the state's criteria for Forest Legacy projects, and Forest Legacy areas within which propsed Legacy projects must be located.  Once the AON is approved, the state lead agency can submit up to three grants each year for projects within the FLAs.  The federal goverment may fund up to 75 percent of project cots, with at least 25 percent coming from private, state or local sources.

Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program (CELCP), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

The Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program (CELCP) funds pass-through grants to states and local governments for land or easement acquisition in a state's coastal zone, and/or as provided for in a state's coastal conservation plan.  CELCP was created in 2002 in order to "protect those coastal and estuarine areas with significant conservation, recreation, ecological, historical or aesthetic values, or those that are threatened by converstion from their natural state to other uses," and lands therefore purchased through this program must generally be maintained or restored to their natural state.  Public access is a general requirement for this program, and the program requires a 1:1 non-federal match, which can be in many forms, including restoration and land value donation.  CECLP is administered through NOAA, which is a sub-agency of the Commerce Department.

The Readiness and Environmental Protection Initiative (REPI), US Department of Defense (DOD)

The Readiness and Environmental Protection Initiative (REPI) allows military installations to work with conservation groups as well as state and local governments to support defense readiness while protecting areas of land for conservation purposes in order to limit incompatible development or preserve biodiversity.   By conserving land for environmental, agricultural and recreational uses, the military and its partners are able to project training areas critical to national defense. 

In 2002, as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003, Congress authorized Section 2684a of Title 10 United States Code (10 U.S.C. § 2684a), which allows the Military Services to enter into agreements with private conservation organizations or with state and local governments.   These agreements allow the Service to cost-share the acquisition of conservation/restrictive-use easements and other interests in land from willing sellers – a way to preserve high-value habitat and limit incompatible development around military ranges and installations. 

Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act (FLTFA)

The Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act (FLTFA) of 2000 authorizes Department of Interior (DOI) and the U.S. Forest Service to use the proceeds from sales of BLM lands to acquire inholdings in federally designated areas, such as BLM areas, national  forests, national parks and national wildlife refuges. FLTFA  provides federal agencies in the eleven Western states and Alaska with an important new funding source to complement the Land and Water Conservation Fund, land exchanges, other federal grant programs, and state and private funds.  The program expires in July 2010, unless it is reauthorized.

USDA Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP)

The Wetlands Reserve Program is a voluntary program offering landowners the opportunity to protect, restore, and enhance wetlands on their property.  The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) provides technical and financial support to help landowners with their wetland restoration efforts.  The NRCS goal is to achieve the greatest wetland functions and values, along with optimum wildlife habitat, on every acre enrolled in the program.  This program offers landowners an opportunity to establish long-term conservation and wildlife practices and protection. The Almanac will only capture permanent easements obtained through this program.

USDA Grasslands Reserve Program (GRP)

The Grassland Reserve Program (GRP) is a voluntary conservation program that emphasizes support for working grazing operations, enhancement of plant and animal biodiversity, and protection of grassland under threat of conversion to other uses.  Participants voluntarily limit future development and cropping uses of the land while retaining the right to conduct common grazing practices and operations related to the production of forage and seeding, subject to certain restrictions during nesting seasons of bird species that are in significant decline or are protected under Federal or State law. A grazing management plan is required for participants.  The Almanac will attempt to capture only permanent easements obtained through this program, however data gaps currently do not allow the separation of permanent and temporary easements.