It's the economy, stupid

As far as I know, James Carville has never provided advice to the conservation community. But if he were asked, he might repeat the slogan he used to keep the 1992 Clinton campaign on message…it’s the economy, stupid. This is especially true in places like Texas, where the working landscape is vital to the economy.

According to the Texas Department of Agriculture, Texas leads the nation in number of farms and ranches, with 248,800 farms and ranches covering 130.2 million acres. Rural lands, including privately owned forest, total 142 million acres, 84 percent of the state's total land area. One of every seven working Texans is in an agriculture-related job.

Americans revere both their property rights and their land ethic. Beginning in the 1930s and continuing into the present, conservation easements have served to balance the complex private and public values associated with the land. Today, these “less-than-fee” interests have become the technique by which most acreage in the US is conserved, as compared to outright acquisition by either land trusts or public agencies.

As political winds shift, the social license for land conservation grows thinner except when such activities are credibly linked to tangible economic development and community revitalization. The conservation of “working” lands (forests, farms and ranches) has brought important allies to the table, ranging from state forest product associations, to stockgrowers associations, farmland access advocates and local elected officials concerned with community revitalization and jobs.

Safeguarding natural systems and water resources against development pressure, especially at the scale required for lasting ecological impact, requires conservationists to engage in partnerships that call on broad support. We need all the help we can get.

As a Partner at The Lyme Timber Company, a private timberland investment company, and in my previous work at The Trust for Public Land, I’ve witnessed many of these partnerships. Landscape scale conservation is neither simple, nor cheap. It often requires private capital, public funding (many times at multiple levels – local, state and/or federal) and philanthropy as well as a committed group of citizens, public officials and advocates to make it happen.

I could bore you with pages and pages of case studies, but this video created by the Gathering Waters Conservancy in Wisconsin does a much better job than I could in capturing the importance of working at the nexus of conservation and economic development. The video describes a 68,000 acre working forest that is owned and managed by The Lyme Timber Company and will soon have a working forest conservation easement held by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources thanks to the leadership of The Conservation Fund, the generous support of The McKnight Foundation and ongoing collaboration with the Wisconsin chapter of The Nature Conservancy and other conservation partners.

During the previous 100 years, the creation and expansion of the National Park system was the defining solution for landscape scale conservation in America. In the next 100 years, hybrid solutions that mix private capital, public funds and philanthropy will lead the way.

Peter R. Stein is Managing Director, the Lyme Timber Company. Prior to joining Lyme, Peter was Senior Vice President of the Trust for Public Land (TPL) where he directed TPL's conservation real estate acquisitions in the Northeast and Midwest. Peter lectures extensively at graduate schools and professional conferences on conservation investment schemes and strategies. With nearly 90 conservation partnerships under his belt, Peter has established himself as a leading force in creating a new business model for sustainable and profitable forestland investment. Peter earned a B.A. with Highest Honors from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1975 and was a Loeb Fellow and received a Certificate in Advanced Environmental Studies from Harvard University in 1981.