An invaluable part of our team.
Landowners are our most important partners. Common Ground Capital (“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 (see “What is a conservation bank tab”).
CGC is a firm believer that it is important to keep private landowners on their land and by partnering with us we can help them monetize a new and possibly significant revenue stream. After contacting the landowner to educate him/her on the conservation banking model and confirming interest in becoming a partner with CGC, CGC then deploys its financial and highly specialized human resource and intellectual capital to perform a detailed and expensive investigation of the property which requires a series of species and habitat surveys.
Assuming these surveys verify the necessary biological and ecological attributes we seek for the targeted species, CGC then develops a detailed long term management plan and conservation easement strategy for the property and works with the United States Fish & Wildlife Service (“USFWS”) to pursue approval of the property or group of properties as a “conservation bank”. CGC is then responsible for developing a market to sell the “species credits” from the conservation bank and shares a percentage of the revenue from these transactions with the landowner to compensate the landowner for placing a a perpetual conservation easement on the property after recouping the development expenses and a non-wasting endowment that runs with the landowners’ property in perpetuity to fund the long term management plan. The conservation easement precludes development of the property for activities that would be detrimental to the conservation needs of the species and its habitat. The conservation easement is held by a land trust or other non-profit organization that the landowner selects.