Partners

Interior Secretary Lauds Conservation Efforts
by Jim Cole, Intermountain West Joint Venture

Gale Norton, Secretary of the Interior, visited a wetlands conservation site at Utah's Great Salt Lake in August 2001 and gave a thumbs-up to the conservation partnership that made it possible. Invited by Utah's Senator Orrin Hatch to see first-hand the success of a public-private partnership facilitated by the Intermountain West Joint Venture, Norton cited the project as a perfect example of her "Four Cs" conservation philosophy: communication, consultation, and cooperation for conservation.

Secretary Norton, Senator Hatch, several joint venture board members, and other partners visited the Great Salt Lake Wetland Restoration Project at the Ambassador Duck Club on site. Senator Hatch called the project ". . .a model for cooperation and compromise. . . This program is incentive based; it is non-regulatory. Most importantly, it has produced real results for our waterfowl and other migratory birds."

Joint venture board chairman William Molini noted that the Great Salt Lake partnership is typical of those that have developed throughout the Intermountain West aimed at putting conservation on the ground. He pointed out the importance of the lake's ecosystem saying it is probably the most important inland shorebird habitat in North America.

The joint venture facilitated the partnership that has obtained funding for various Great Salt Lake projects. Fifteen partners, including Davis County, private landowners, federal agencies, Utah Division of Wildlife, non-governmental conservation organizations, private corporations, and foundations, have conserved more than 25,000 acres of habitat. North American Wetland Conservation Act grants totaling nearly $2 million have been matched with more than $3.6 million from non-federal partners alone to accomplish this work.

The North American Waterfowl Management Plan (Plan) Committee asked Secretary Norton if she would use the occasion of her visit to present its National Great Blue Heron Award to PacifiCorp, one of the corporate partners in the Great Salt Lake project, a long-time member of the joint venture management board, and a generous partner of other conservation projects in Utah and Idaho. The award is presented annually to partners who make sustained, significant contributions to migratory bird conservation in support of the Plan's migratory bird population goals.

For more information, contact Jim Cole, Intermountain West Joint Venture Coordinator, 145 East 1300 South, Suite 404, Salt Lake City, Utah 84115, (801) 524-5021, iwjv@xmission.com.

A Harbor in the Desert
by Ben Ikenson, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

The drought had reduced the carrying capacity of the Magoffin's 22,000-acre ranch to 100 head of cattle, one-third normal capacity. The meager herd shared the ranch with the last remaining Chiricahua leopard frogs in Arizona's lower San Bernardino Valley. A pair of stock ponds simultaneously gave drink to cattle and provided habitat for the frogs, not to mention birds and other wildlife.

"We had two populations of frogs," said Anna. "One had already been documented by researchers from the University of Arizona; another had never been recorded."

The Chiricahua leopard frog once ranged throughout the Southwest in mid-elevation cienegas, pools, lakes, livestock tanks, reservoirs, streams, and rivers. Habitat alteration, predation by non-native species such as bullfrogs, and disease have contributed to the population decline of this stocky, rough-skinned frog. Now existing only in a few scattered remnant populations, it is proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act. The severe drought that began in 1994 could easily have caused at least one of the remaining natural populations to slip into the abyss were it not for the Magoffins.

For 2 years, the Magoffins hauled 1,000 gallons of fresh water per week to ensure the survival of the frogs in one pond, while a windmill-powered pump fed water to the other pond. "We put a huge steel tank in an old, flatbed truck," Anna recalled. "There were holes in the floorboard. The brakes barely worked. You never knew when the hood would suddenly fly up. It was always an adventure bringing water in that truck."

Tadpoles hatched in both ponds were taken to the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge, to increase frog numbers there, and to the Douglas High School captive propagation facility. The frogs became a popular subject in the school's educational program for at-risk teenagers.

The Magoffins' conservation efforts have inspired others. Today, they are among the many private landowners in the Malpai Borderlands Group, a private, non-profit organization established to sustain traditional ranching economies and biodiversity within a 1-million-acre region of southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. The group believes that strong alliances between public and private sectors and between ranching, conservation, and scientific communities will serve as means to achieving both goals.

For the Magoffins, the long-lasting effects of the drought continue to impose limitations on the size of their herd. Nonetheless, their work for the frogs perseveres, providing water through another dry season, now for three distinct populations of frogs.

For more information, contact Ben Ikenson, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 500 Gold Avenue, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87103, (505) 248-6457, ben_ikenson@fws.gov.

Trust in the Past and the Future
by Martha Nudel, Land Trust Alliance

An analysis completed in the fall of 2001 by the Land Trust Alliance (LTA) of its National Land Trust Census reveals that the number of regional and local land trusts is growing at an extraordinary rate, and they are conserving open space at levels exceeding everyone's expectations. As of December 31, 2000, the Nation's local and regional land trusts had conserved an astounding 6,479,672 acres of open space—an area larger than Vermont and Rhode Island combined. Land trusts' efforts reflect a 241 percent increase over the 1.9 million acres protected by 1990.

For the first time since 1891, when the first nonprofit land trust was founded in the United States, land trusts have permanently protected open space in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. "Land trusts have created an everlasting legacy on the land," said Jean Hocker, recently retired LTA president.

The census paints a portrait of a vibrant and effective movement:

• A record 1,263 land trusts were in operation in 2000, a 42 percent increase over the 887 that existed in 1990.
• California, New York, and Montana led the nation in the amount of acreage protected by land trusts.
• In the Southwest (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah), land trusts increased protected lands by 2,201 percent, from 40,403 acres at the end of 1990 to 929,602 acres by the end of 2000.
• The south-central United States (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas) saw the most rapid growth in the number of land trusts. Texas experienced the greatest growth, from 9 land trusts in 1990 to 22 in 2000.
• Massachusetts, the birthplace of land trusts, continued to lead the Nation with 143 nonprofit land conservation organizations.

Land trusts protect a variety of land types. Among the types most commonly identified as "primary" in the census were wetlands, river corridors, watersheds, and farmland and ranchland. Examples follow:

In Montana, retired businessman Sam Bibler donated two conservation easements to the Montana Land Reliance, permanently protecting 975 acres on two ranches, creating an open-space gateway to the City of Kalispell.

The LandTrust for Central North Carolina purchased 300 acres of wetlands and uplands on the Yadkin River and transferred the land to Catawba College as a wildlife refuge. The area provides habitat for mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and migratory birds.

In Washington, the San Juan Preservation Trust purchased 219 acres on Waldron Island's Disney Mountain, protecting more than a mile of shoreline and forested habitat on the San Juan Islands in Puget Sound. Raptors, songbirds, and stands of Garry oak, a native tree that is fast disappearing, benefit. The most ambitious fundraising campaign in the land trust's 21-year history resulted in the $1.2 million acquisition.

"The success of land trusts shows us just how much people treasure open space and how hard they will work to ensure its conservation," observed Ms. Hocker. "A decade from today, a century from now, and farther into the future, our descendants will be grateful."

For more information, contact Martha Nudel, Land Trust Alliance, 1331 H Street, NW, Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 20005-4711, (202) 638-4725, mnudel@lta.org.