Conservation banks offer one solution for lesser prairie chicken
By Wayne Walker | September 13, 2013
There is a looming train wreck coming from Texas to Colorado. In the middle of environmental and energy interests is the lesser prairie chicken, a yellow crowned member of the grouse family that engages in an elaborate courting “dance” every spring across this region.
As reported in the Houston Chronicle on Sept. 1 (“Habitat dispute could put grouse on protected list,” page B1) the lesser prairie chicken once covered a vast, five-state range, but their population has been decimated. The cause is no mystery: Over a century of land conversion from prairie to rangeland and cropland, and more recently the boom in energy production on the plains, has come at the expense of this species.
Texans should remember we already lost the fight on the lesser prairie chicken’s cousin, the Attwater’s prairie chicken, which used to occupy habitat along the coastal prairies but now no longer has viable population sizes in the wild.
So we face a classic “protect the environment” versus “jobs and economic growth” scenario. Unlike most clashes between these often competing interests, there is a solution to this one where both sides can get what they want. Here’s how: By adopting a now well-established private-sector solution known as conservation banking, which was not available during the Attwater’s prairie chickens demise in the mid-1990s.
Conservation banks are permanently protected lands that contain natural resource values for species that are threatened and endangered. They function to offset adverse impacts to these species that occurred elsewhere. Thus, if you negatively affect the habitat for a protected species, or the species itself, you must compensate with additional improved habitat for that same species in the appropriate ecological region.
This process is regulated by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which determines the number of habitat or species credits that the conservation bank is authorized to sell, as well as the number of credits required for an impact caused by development.
Conservation banking is an entrepreneurial business with more than 100 such arrangements now in multiple states. The first conservation bank in Texas was approved to mitigate impacts to the golden-cheeked warbler in 2003. Numerous conservation banks for multiple species have been approved since that time and an active and mature species trading market now exists in Texas.
This regulatory framework represents what is too often absent in environmental outcomes: A market-based approach that relies on the private sector to accurately determine the cost of successful mitigation when a protected species is adversely affected. Instead of relying on government agencies, taxpayers and conservation-minded landowners to fund protection for threatened or endangered species, the protected habitats are funded by those who impair them.
A plan pending approval by the Fish and Wildlife Service could bring together competing environmental and energy interests. By allowing regulated impacts to the lesser prairie chicken and its habitat, thereby giving industry the certainty to operate in the region, the financial resources required to conserve and repopulate the species are ensured and responsible economic growth allowed.
There are currently two competing approaches for the protection of the lesser prairie chicken: Permanent and temporary land protection. While final regulations could entail a mix of both, permanent protection clearly provides the greatest degree of assurance of success for the species and certainty for energy interests.
As a former energy developer turned conservation banker who has attended numerous meetings with government, energy and environmental groups regarding the lesser prairie chicken, it is clear the one thing all sides most want is certainty. Government wants certainty that the chicken and its habitat will be protected. Energy interests want certainty for the cost and timing of regulatory compliance. Environmental groups want certainty of resource protection.
Conservation banking is the best way to provide certainty for all sides, help us avoid a looming train wreck and ensure we learn from our past mistakes.
Walker is president of Common Ground Capital. He was raised in Texas and now lives in Edmond, Okla.