Private Land Conservation

"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction) 03/04/2020 at 09:51 • Filed to: None

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Went down the rabbit hole a little bit on this after FoF’s mention of the Green Woodlands. Obviously, federal lands that are truly owned by the citizenry are best, but it’s pretty awesome that some of these multi-billionaires are using their wealth to acquire /amass land with conservation and public use into the distant future in mind.

Ted Turner and one of his old friends collectively own over 4,000,000 acres in the U.S.

“We’re working toward the same goal—to be stewards of the land and make sure it’s preserved for future generations,” says Turner.

But though their conservation ends may be the same, their means differ. “Ted’s idea of tradition is to go back to pre-European times,” says Malone. Turner famously poisoned a stretch of Cherry Creek—which runs through his Flying D Ranch in Montana—to rid it of the invasive brown and rainbow trout. (He replanted the stream with native cutthroat trout.) At Turner’s ranch bison roam free over land that’s been cleared of most signs of human habitation.

Malone, on the other hand, says, “I tend to be more willing to admit that human beings aren’t going away.” So he believes that trees can be harvested without damaging the ecology and wildlife. (“I’m not an extreme tree-hugger,” he says.) He will continue the sustainable forestry operation on the Maine and New Hampshire land (purchased from GMO Renewable Resources, a private equity firm). Malone is also looking at wind-power opportunities on the property and will keep the land open for public recreation, a Maine tradition . Malone takes the same “working farm” philosophy with his western properties, like the Bell Ranch, where he raises cattle and horses.

Malone wants to “break even” on his land, but there is more than economics involved. “There’s the emotional and intellectual aspect of walking the land and getting that sense of awe,” he says. “I own it, sort of, for my lifetime.”

Like Turner, he has plans to conserve most of it for beyond his lifetime, through perpetual conservation easements. “But I’m not going to kid myself and think that 500 years from now, with population growth, that the government won’t start putting people on the land,” he says. “But at least I tried.”

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Nibby > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/04/2020 at 10:04

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phenotyp > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/04/2020 at 10:15

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That’s pretty great. If you have the means, like he does, at least you can put some of those dollars to good use.

My grandfather established a conservation with his 26 acres of wetland and woods in Ohio, upon his passing. It’s only 26 acres, but it was land that was proposed for an international jetport in the 80s. Which would have been an incredibly stupid thing, but some guy really wanted to build it.

ttyymmnn > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/04/2020 at 10:20

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I’ve said for years that if I had the money I would buy land and just let it go back to nature. This is great.

TheRealBicycleBuck > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/04/2020 at 10:28

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My first dissertation project started with a question: “What is open s pace?” In the northeast, many people think of farms when they think of open space. I n the northwest , their idea of open space is o ld growth forests. The project focused on open space preservation in Texas, so the first thing we needed to understand is what people in Texas considered “open space.”

W hen trying to “ conserve” land, we have to think about what conservation regime we are trying to achieve. Nearly e very environment on the Earth has been influenced by humans. Even in the most remote areas of the U.S., we s uppress natural fires and create “controlled” burns to try to emulate the benefits of fire. Both activities affect the role that fire would normally play in those environments. No matter what we do, we are still managing the environment to an artificial “natural” state.

Unfortunately, I was about two years into the project when funding dried up and I had to find something new. That’s when I started studying disasters.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > phenotyp 03/04/2020 at 10:32

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That’s awesome. So there’s a trust to keep it as is, basically forever?

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/04/2020 at 10:36

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The prairie preservation/restoration efforts in the West are really where it’s at. Much harder to do anything like that east of the Mississippi, except in areas that are mountainous and deeply wooded.

phenotyp > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/04/2020 at 10:59

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I hope so. It was established as a conservancy in 1998. Given how bad everything has been in NE Ohio, and that the house/property was sold after my grandma passed in 2015, I don’t know its status.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > phenotyp 03/04/2020 at 11:02

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It really is a challenge to keep something like that together, unless it’s done in an incredibly bulletproof way, especially with lots of potential heirs to the value of that asset who all have their own needs & desires.

TheRealBicycleBuck > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/04/2020 at 11:08

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I focu sed on the role of long-term development in disasters . One of the things I observed was coastal prairie potholes, a unique environment that almost nobody knows about and which are essentially gone. It will be nearly impossible to restore these areas because they are uniquely impacted by local and regional drainage, both of which have been severely altered by human activities.

One of the things I’d love to do is identify what is currently sitting i n the potholes I identified from aerial photography taken in the ‘40s and see what kind of structural and drainage issues they have been dealing with. A number of the potholes had houses sited in them in the early 20 00s.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/04/2020 at 11:12

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Very interesting - looks like Houston’s regular flooding is a result of developing in an area like this.

functionoverfashion > ttyymmnn 03/04/2020 at 11:39

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Even though it’s not much, we just bought 6.48 acres adjacent to our existing 5.5 acres and put about 11 of the 12 into a form of conservation. It doesn’t mean we can’t ever  build on it, but our intent is to keep it mostly natural while maintaining only a small part of it as clear (as opposed to forested, which is what the rest already is or will become in the absence of management). 

ttyymmnn > functionoverfashion 03/04/2020 at 11:41

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That’s great. 

TheRealBicycleBuck > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/04/2020 at 11:42

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You are correct. Well, it also has a lot to do with the insane rainfall amounts Houston has seen over the last decade. Drainage systems are designed to keep the roads from ponding during 10-year rainfall events and to prevent flooding of the nearby housing during 100-year rainfall events.

Houston’s normal August rainfall is ~4 inches. The 100-year rainfall event in Houston was defined as ~13 inches before Harvey . Harvey dumped nearly 4 times that amount in some places in a couple of days. Drainage systems   designed to prevent flooding during a 13 inch rainfall had to deal with nearly 50 inches of rain. Wow.

Now that NOAA has recalculated the 100-year rainfall for Houston, what used to be a 100-y ear event is now a 25-year event. The drainage systems will require significant redesign to cope with the expected rainfall. The alternatives are elevating the houses in the affected areas or removing them altogether. Both of those things are happening across the region.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/04/2020 at 11:49

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The alternatives are elevating the houses in the affected areas or removing them altogether. Both of those things are happening across the region.

I’m a proponent of removing people from disaster prone areas. My idea is that anytime FEMA has to step in to help an area, if it’s deemed another event is likely to occur then all FEMA aid goes towards relocation and not rebuilding.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/04/2020 at 11:56

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Yep - hoping to see more places like this returned to nature. See also: beachfront property in many places.

Some places around here are like 20" over average for the year.

functionoverfashion > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/04/2020 at 12:08

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I learned a lot about New Hampshire’s land conservation in my research about putting some of our land into “ C urrent U se” conservation - all that means is that we can’t build on it, and must keep it more or less the way it is, unless we want to change that status and pay a tax penalty at that time. So basically NH incentivizes landowners to put larger parcels of land into a sort-of conservation status, and gives them a further discount (20%) for allowing limited public recreational use (e.g. hiking but no motorized vehicles). Something like half of the land in NH is in Current Use status under this program.

Of course, this law disproportionately benefits those who are able to live on larger parcels of land, because there’s a 10 acre minimum to enroll land in Current Use. So even though we more than doubled our property area, we’ll see a decreased tax bill next year because we’re over the minimum now and we’re putting 11 of our 12 acres into Current Use where the taxable value will be very low.

But I digress. My father works (occasionally) with a local land conservation group that helps people put their larger parcels of land into various types of conservation. They can help you protect it in such a way that the land will never be developed, or that its use will be limited to whatever you specify, and they can act as caretakers / stewards of your land or find an organization to do so . I’m sure there are many such organizations, but we’re fortunate to have two right nearby here, both very active in their efforts.

TheRealBicycleBuck > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/04/2020 at 12:10

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I agree with you, but it’s more complicated than that. Much of Houston is covered by Low-to- Moderate Income areas.

You can bet that many of those areas experienced flooding. Inexpensive housing is often located in disaster-prone areas. When looking to move people from these areas, you have to find a place for them to go to which has similar access to transportation, jobs, health services, etc. Finding places where people can be relocated and still have access to work and the things they need while still being affordable is difficult. Keep in mind that many of these people were renting their housing, so when it comes to recovery dollars, it’s the property owner who receives the benefits, not necessarily the people living there.

I’ve been working on the infrastructure side of the problem for the last two years and we are just now getting shovels into the dirt. The last I heard, the folks responsible for the housing side are still working to get their programs in place. A big part of the delay is finding the right solution for the area and finding places where they can rebuild.

TheRealBicycleBuck > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/04/2020 at 12:12

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When I lived in Oklahoma, we had to deal with  a flood on the North Canadian. The only issue for me was finding a place to cross. Our house was on top of a hill, several miles north of the river.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > functionoverfashion 03/04/2020 at 12:13

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That’s great - I remember you mentioning this. Do you have to combined your property into one continuous tract before being eligible for this program?

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/04/2020 at 12:16

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I know it’s more complicated than “just don’t rebuild there”. W e also can’t just keep rebuilding either though , i n the long run that will end up costing more. It’s also never going to be a popular political position so the odds of that happening are low until a very extreme event. 

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/04/2020 at 12:20

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Similar with us. We’re close to the Verdigris, and surrounding creeks rose and there was lots of water over the roadways. We’re not on a hill, but we’re high enough, thankfully, and there are hills nearby that drain over our property and into our pond.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/04/2020 at 12:21

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What makes me insane are these federal programs that pay people to rebuild (over and over again, sometimes) in the same place, instead of just buying them out.

TheRealBicycleBuck > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/04/2020 at 12:35

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See my comment to Mario. https://oppositelock.kinja.com/1842090347

TheRealBicycleBuck > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/04/2020 at 12:36

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It depends on what they build there. If the new building is properly elevated, in theory, it won’t flood again.

Rebuilding the same structure at the same elevation is just stupid.

functionoverfashion > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/04/2020 at 12:57

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No, the parcels just have to be adjacent.

When I worked for a land developer, he did a lot of work in the area of balancing land conservation with maintaining the affordability of housing for regular people. It’s a challenge, no doubt. 

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > functionoverfashion 03/04/2020 at 13:39

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That’s nice - glad you get to take advantage of it.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/04/2020 at 13:48

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I was thinking of wealthy people on coastlines, but I take your point.

DipodomysDeserti > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/04/2020 at 14:09

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The founder of The North Face, Douglas Tompkins, bought up a whole bunch of wilderness in southern Chile in order to keep it as a preserve, promising to return it to the Chilean people once it could be assured it would remain a national park. His widow donated the land back a few years ago.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-39292600

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > DipodomysDeserti 03/04/2020 at 14:34

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That’s great - hope it stays that way.

I am just a little conflicted about a rich American/westerner deciding what should be done with another country’s land, but as long as he has the will of the common people at heart, it’s hard to judge.

But h ypothetically, some rich guy could buy up a bunch of prime mining/drilling land, and decide to shut it down and make it a preserve. Great for the world environment, but what if it leaves tons of locals who were employed by the industry in poverty? Just saying, every action has a reaction that needs to be considered.

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/04/2020 at 20:29

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We are doing something like this on our place...

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/04/2020 at 22:27

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the founder of fortnight has 36k in north carolina