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Conservation Excellence
Common Ground Capital leads the way in delivering best-in-class landscape-scale mitigation solutions for endangered species. Partnering with private landowners, equity investors, and industry leaders, we ensure strategic conservation value while providing certainty to all stakeholders. Discover our commitment to conservation excellence.
Common Ground Capital ("CGC") was founded in 2012 with a clear mission: to deliver best-in-class landscape-scale mitigation solutions for endangered species. We provide certainty to conservation sites and their landscapes by protecting them forever under the USFWS conservation banking model. Our approach prioritizes effective conservation outcomes through market-based solutions with landowners.
Our Focus
What We've Done
With a focus on the Lesser Prairie Chicken and American Burying Beetle, CGC has secured significant acreage and approvals for conservation bank agreements of critically endangered species that has given peace of mind to billions of dollars investments, and provided proper valuation of landowners contribution the ecosystem, all while delivering improved habitat that actually makes a difference for the species.
Accomplishments
American Burying Beetle
Secured 100% of the Keystone Gulf Coast Pipeline ABB Mitigation in record time under a joint venture with Wildwood Credits of Tyler Texas (December 2012)
Achieved full conservation bank approval (February 2014) for property adjacent to the Keystone McAlister Conservation Area. The combined projects permanently protected 1,600 acres of key habitat for the ABB
Sold out six phases of expansion conservation banks, totaling over 4,000 contiguous acres from 2013 - 2020, which allowed our partnership to establish a re-connected, holistically managed large landscape for the ABB in a priority conservation area
Executed on numerous ABB transactions from 2012 - present (Wildwood is lead on Marketing)
ABB Conservation Banks were listed by USFWS as a key reason for the down listing to Threatened Status in 2020
Completed multiple research projects on the project site
Accomplishments
Lesser Prairie Chicken
Secured 75,000 acres of option agreements across three states/three service territories
Obtained full USFWS approval of the only species programmatic conservation bank agreement (“PCBA”) in the country which covers the entire range of the Lesser Prairie Chicken (May 2014)
Received full USFWS approval of two conservation banks in Kansas totaling 29,000 acres serving the mixed grass and short grass ecosystems (March 2015)
Secured full USFWS approval of the Tomahawk Conservation Bank in West Texas developed by RiverBank Ecosystems of Austin, Texas under CGC/LPCC’s PCBA (October 2015)
Secured full USFWS approval of the Lost Draw Conservation Bank in Eastern New Mexico developed by RiverBank Ecosystems of Austin, Texas under CGC/LPCC’s PCBA (September 2018)
Secured an initial equity investment in the company with one of the largest mitigation companies in the country, Restoration Systems (September 2013) and formed a dedicated joint venture with a major equity investment firm in December 2014 (LPC Conservation, LLC)
Successfully achieved approval of two, range-wide, habitat conservation plans (HCPs): One for the oil and gas industry (June 2022) and one for the renewables, transmission and communication towers industries (December 2021). Both HCPs are fully compliant with the USFWS Framework for the Review of Lesser Prairie-Chicken Voluntary Conservation Programs (July 2021)
Our team
We ensure certainty for industry partners by enabling the full transfer of liability away from their projects under the Endangered Species Act.
Save the Chicken
Partners
We ensure certainty for industry partners by enabling the full transfer of liability away from their projects under the Endangered Species Act. Our conservation banks provide the highest degree of certainty for permit administrators and customers. Additionally, our free market mitigation model recognizes landowners' valuable resources and allows them to make independent financial decisions.
Landowners
CGC performs significant due diligence to identify landowners whose properties possess the biological and ecological attributes required to achieve the targeted preservation and/or restoration goals of the targeted species and its habitat that we seek to benefit through the conservation banking model
Western Ecosystems Technology, Inc.
During the Spring of 2012 WEST performed site specific high density helicopter surveys on multiple target conservation bank location sites for CGC. Prior to starting CGC, Wayne had a long standing relationship with WEST during his tenure in the wind industry and has collaborated with WEST on a consulting basis in the distant past.
New Mexico Land Conservancy
Our partners in conservation easement in the state of New Mexico, NMLC holds the easement for our Lost Draw Conservation Bank in Roosevelt County. NMLC holds a 2000 acre easement for a previous conservation bank transaction in addition to managing the endowment funds associated with this project. https://nmlandconservancy.org/
The Barn Group
A national land trust that supports our current efforts in Kansas. The Barn Group has been a great conservation easement partner and, in addition to approximately 15,000 acres of easements that supported previous conservation bank transactions, they also perform the majority of our management activities for these retired acres and manage our endowments associated with these properties. https://thebarngroup.org/
Texas Agricultural Land Trust
One of the largest agricultural based land trusts in the country, TALT holds the easement for our first conservation bank transaction which occurred in 2016 for the Tomahawk Conservation bank located adjacent to Texas Parks and Wildlife Departments Yokum Dunes Preserve. In addition, TALT also manages the endowment for the property. https://www.txaglandtrust.org/
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