BBCC - Incentive Program

03 2010

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Incentive Programs for Wildlife Habitat Restoration

Bringing back the bottomland forests is one of the criteria for removing the bear from the Endangered Species list. Bottomland hardwoods need to be established and maintained as corridors for movement and genetic exchange between the northern, central, and southern bear populations. Although there are many public lands in the region, 90% of bottomland forests are on private lands, which is why involving the private landowner in habitat restoration is key to the success of bear recovery efforts.

Most of the bottomland hardwood habitat loss along the Mississippi River came from conversion of forests to agricultural uses, especially during the soybean boom when prices rose to $12 a bushel. Unfortunately, many of those lands flood regularly now and are considered either marginal or completely unproductive cropland, where successful harvests only occur 1 in 5 seasons. I t’s these marginal croplands that the Black Bear Conservation Coalition (BBCC) is targeting for reforestation.

There are several federal, state, and private conservation programs available to private landowners that offer assistance for conversion of non-productive farmland back to bottomland hardwoods. These programs offer different types of easements, cost-share plans, and other financial and technical assistance. Interested landowners may be unfamiliar with these programs, and the process to select the most appropriate program for their needs may seem confusing.

One of the common misconceptions about conservation programs is that once you’ve entered into an easement agreement, your land becomes open to public access. This is not the case! An easement purchases some of a landowner’s rights to use the land, but it remains private property. The contract spells out specifically what rights are being purchased. Even on the strictest easements, the landowner will be in control and able to hunt and fish and lease those rights on that land. These easements do not allow access by the general public to private lands or increase a landowner’s liability for having endangered species on the land. The contracted land is still private property so the government cannot apply restrictions it has on its own lands.