The Ranch Post

The Conservation Fund, Colorado Open Lands, Nature Conservancy, Trust For Public Lands and Colorado Conservation Trust have recently joined forces to form a new coalition, named Keep it Colorado. “The group will focus attention and preservation efforts on 700,000 acres of land in 24 different regions of the state, from the San Juan Valley to the Eastern Plains,” and are proposing a $800 million plan to accomplish just that. Read about how the coalition expects to fund the plan in today’s Rocky Mountain News.

Last month the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set a new national limit for smog. “Under the EPA’s old limit, set in 1997, air was unhealthy if it had an average of more than 84 parts per billion of ozone. The new limit is 75 parts per billion or more.”

According to an analysis performed by USA Today, “smaller metropolitan areas” as well as wilderness areas — “are the most likely to be labeled as smoggy” under the new limit. So much so, that the number of small counties (with less than 250,000 people) in violation of the limit would change “from five to 47.” Read about the analysis in today’s USA Today.

In honor of Earth Day (which is today), a report on smog related deaths will be released by the National Research Council.  Stay tuned…

The Casper Star-Tribune is reporting that hunters and anglers are getting worried about the effect global warming is having on wildlife and fish habitat.

The Wildlife Management Institute released a report based on work done by nine fishing and hunting organizations, providing “a glimpse of their concerns.” Highlights include:

• “Prairie pothole regions essential for waterfowl could lose 90 percent of their wetlands, causing a 69 percent decline in North America’s breeding ducks.
• About 42 percent of the trout and salmon habitat could be lost by the end of the century, with bull trout virtually disappearing in the high mountain West and wild trout from lower Appalachian streams.
• The number of pronghorn antelope, elk and mule deer will dwindle as rising temperatures allow trees and shrubs to overwhelm the sagebrush ecosystem in the West.
• Populations of bobwhite quail will shrink in the Deep South as summertime drought and higher temperatures disrupt their breeding cycles. And drier conditions in fall and early spring will threaten quail in the Southwest.
• While an increase in water temperature and other change could benefit some salt water marine species, sea-level rise would destroy thousands of acres of coastal salt marshes and seagrass that are home to larval and juvenile game fish.”

The American Farm Bureau is reporting the results of a Department of Agriculture survey of farmer’s planting intentions for 2008. According to the report, “U.S. farmers are expected to plant about 18 percent more soybeans this year, while their corn acreage could decline by about 8 percent from a year ago.” The report is significant, as the day the report was released, a bushel of corn was “up about 10 cents to 15 cents.”

In related news, the New York Times elaborates on our April 1 blog on how ranchers and farmers are taking their land out of the government’s Conservation Reserve Program, and farming that land to cash in on the agricultural boom. “Environmental and hunting groups are warning that years of progress could soon be lost, particularly with the native prairie in the Upper Midwest. But a broad coalition of baking, poultry, snack food, ethanol and livestock groups say bigger harvests are a more important priority than habitats for waterfowl and other wildlife.” According to the article, as many acres as “are in Rhode Island and Delaware combined” were converted from conserved to cultivated land last fall alone.

From around the web, here’s the latest news on conservation tax credits in Colorado:

• “Ranchers worry about future of conservation tax credit,” KUNC 91.5 FM Radio Broadcast
• “Columnist: Transparency welcome on open space tax credits,” Vail Daily, by Cindy Cohegan, Executive Director, Eagle Valley Land Trust”

Also, check out “Ridgeway rancher looks back” in the Telluride Daily Planet, an article about the life of Deedee Decker, the wife of our Agricultural Stewardship Expert, Peter Decker. The Deckers came to Colorado in the 1970s, and have been extremely active in the community from the get-go. Here she discusses everything from their initial move from the East Coast, to learning to become the agricultural experts they are today, to advising Ralph Lauren on buying his first ranch property.

USA Today is reporting that many openlands are vanishing because of “soaring grain prices that have increased their value as cropland.” Farmers are electing to not re-enroll in the federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), which is a voluntary conservation program run by the US Department of Agriculture that pays farmers to convert farmland to grasslands, forest, wildlife cover and for other conservation purposes. “As grain and farmland prices surge, farmers have less financial incentive to hold land in the CRP,” and as a result, farmers “chose not to re-enroll about 2.5 million acres when the most recent batch of CRP contracts expired on Sept. 30.” Read the article to find out more.

You may have noticed his photographs on our website. And many know him for his books Colorado 1870-2000 and Colorado Then & Now, where he compared his current Colorado photography to photos taken by William Henry Jackson in the nineteenth century. (If you’ve been in a bookstore in Colorado anytime over the past 10 years, you know the books.)

According to the Denver Post, now famed landscape photographer, John Fielder, is working on a new book that will feature 50 “multigenerational, centennial-quality ranches” in Colorado, “about two-thirds of which have conservation easements on them.” His work will show the success and importance of the tax credit “program for preserving Colorado’s ranching heritage.”

“A percentage of sales will go to the Colorado Coalition of Land Trusts, Colorado Open Lands and the Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust.”

For more information, read the article.

Check out the latest news on the state of conservation easements in Colorado:

• “Bill pays to monitor tax credits,” Denver Post, 3/20/08
• “Panel backs land-conservation overhaul,” Rocky Mountain News, 3/20/08
• “Fees to benefit easement regulation,” Denver Post, 3/12/08
• “House panel hears easement testimony,” Denver Post, 3/12/08
• “Lawmakers consider fees to oversee easements program,” Rocky Mountain News, 3/11/08
• “Lawmakers promise to crack down on conservation easements,” Summit Daily News, 3/11/08
• “Legislators tighten up easement tax credit,” Cherry Creek News, 3/11/08
• “Maintaining conservation system is critical for Colorado’s future,” Grand Junction Sentinel, 3/7/08

In 2007, the state of New Mexico passed new legislation that expanded the state tax credit already allowed under the New Mexico Land Conservation Incentives Act for conservation easements. The new law, called HB990 – Real Property Transfers Tax Credit, is very similar to Colorado’s popular conservation tax credit program, allowing New Mexico landowners to get cash back for protecting their properties with a conservation easement.

Other highlights of the bill include:

• Tax credit will continue to be for 50% of the value of the donation
• HB990 increases maximum credit from $100,000 to $250,000
• The credit is now transferable, making conservation easements a more viable option for farmers and ranchers

For more information, contact these institutions:

• New Mexico Land Conservancy
• Taos Land Trust
• Quivira Coalition

Or view the bill on the New Mexico Legislature website.

Source: New Mexico Land Conservancy

Photo: Rancho Cañada, a ranch for sale in Guadalupita, NM.

Everyone at Mirr Ranch Group is back in the office today after two information-packed days at New Era of Conservation 2008, the annual policy conference for the Colorado Coalition of Land Trusts. Mirr Ranch Group would like to thank all of those who helped put the conference together, including Jill Ozarski and Jordan Beezely of CCLT; K-Lynn Cameron, Kerri Rollins and Windy Kelley of the Larimer County Open Lands Program; as well as all sponsors, planning committee members and CCLT board members. The conservation community appreciates all you did to make the event happen.

In light of the policy conference and new legislation in the works, there have been several conservation-related articles in the local press this past week:

• “Ritter: State may join land trust probe,” Denver Post, 2/27/08
  
• “Policing conservation tax credits,” Rocky Mountain News, 2/27/08
• “Preservation of ranch secured,” Rocky Mountain News, 2/27/08
  
• “State probes land trust,” Denver Post, 2/26/08
  
• “State agency subpoenas land trust’s records,” Rocky Mountain News, 2/27/08

There have also been many recent editorials on the subject:

• “Don’t cap easements; let enforcement work” by Jill Ozarski, Executive Director of CCLT
• “Colo. should invest more in land conservation” by Senator Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus
• “Better oversight will strengthen and preserve conservation easement program” by Representative Alice Madden, D-Boulder
• “Easy easements” by Rocky Mountain News Editorial Board
• “Our money, their benefit: Add oversight to land protection program” by Clint Talbott for the Daily Camera Editorial Board