Browsing by Subject "conservation easement"

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    Analyzing conservation-siting decisions and spillover effects in North Carolina
    (2020-04-20) Jain, Shivangi
    Land conservation is used to protect a variety of vulnerable ecosystem services and land uses in the United States and around the world. As of 2019, 12% of the total land in the US was protected for conservation by private actors and public agencies. Strategies to select land for conservation consider a host of factors – the benefits protected by conserving land, the cost of implementing conservation, and the risk of future development if land remains unprotected. The two primary tools for conserving land, fee-simple acquisitions and conservation easements, differ in the level of protection they afford, their implementation costs, and their impact on development risk. Using data from Durham County in North Carolina, I explore how the two tools may be used to protect different types of land and how their use may have spillover effects on surrounding land values. A better understanding of the kinds of land being conserved and their spillover effects can inform future land conservation strategies for improved conservation benefits.
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    Private Landowner Participation in the Carbon Market: Opportunities in North Carolina
    (2008-04-21T21:24:48Z) Gray, Erin
    In response to the growing awareness of climate change across the globe, innovative conservationists have begun employing market approaches to capture the true value of carbon emissions and encourage sequestration. The most widespread mechanism used to date, both domestically and internationally, is the carbon cap-and-trade system. The US carbon market is currently highly fragmented and mostly voluntary, but the growth of state actions, business participation, and growth in climate change market proposals in the 110th Congress all suggest that the US is headed towards a regulated carbon cap-and-trade system. Beyond reducing carbon emissions from sources, the market has the potential to promote conservation efforts and sustainable land-use practices on private lands by providing an additional revenue stream to private landowners. Without regulations, however, there are several barriers to entry that are preventing private landowner participation. These include: a lack of information of entry opportunities and characteristics of cap-and-trade proposals in the 110th Congress, cost constraints due to low market prices prevalent in US carbon markets, concerns about carbon market eligibility with other conservation funding programs, and concerns about entering into long-term conservation contracts required by market schemes to ensure permanence of sequestration activities. This report examines these barriers through 1) a scoping analysis of international and domestic carbon markets to determine North Carolina private landowner entry opportunities, 2) an assessment of eligibility criteria for relevant Federal and state conservation funding and other ecosystem service markets, and 3) an economic analysis of representative NC properties to determine income potential from carbon activities. Carbon market participation is shown to be a worthwhile endeavor for conservation-minded landowners. The modeled gains in income demonstrate a low but positive income gain if carbon market prices are to stay constant at the Chicago Climate Exchange’s current credit price of $2.05 per metric ton of CO2 equivalent. Using predictions from recent studies that have modeled trading price increases with cap-and-trade proposals in the 110th Congress, landowner gain is shown to sharply increase over a fifty year time horizon with a regulated carbon market. This study is useful for the North Carolina land protection community in encouraging private landowner participation in the carbon market. Policy recommendations are also provided to assist the state of North Carolina in moving forward with carbon market participation.
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    Using Conservation Easements as a Water Quality Protection Tool in the Goose Creek Watershed, Northern Virginia
    (2008-04-24T21:11:18Z) Hamm, Tracy
    Goose Creek was placed on Virginia’s list of impaired waters in 1998 for its failure to attain the standards for both primary contact use and aquatic life use due to fecal coliform and sedimentation, respectively. The Middle Goose Creek Subwatershed is dominated by large parcels and is covered by a mosaic of forest and agriculture. It is also immediately upstream of the rapid development pressures of Loudoun County, Va. One particularly comprehensive tool for encouraging and implementing water quality protection is to place a parcel under conservation easement. The objectives of this project are as follows: (1) develop and utilize a prioritization scheme for targeting parcels to be placed under conservation easements, (2) compare the existing easements with this prioritization, and (3) make management recommendations as to which priority parcels remain to be targeted for easement and which existing easements need to be strengthened. The prioritization scheme is based on four metrics: runoff potential, buffer potential, forested streambank, and agricultural streambank. The top five highest ranking parcels of each metric were overlaid to produce a total of 14 priority parcels. Despite 43% of the land in this subwatershed already being under conservation easements, only six of the 14 priority parcels were already under easement. My recommendations are to target priority parcels not yet under conservation easement to be placed under easement and to amend existing easements on priority parcels to strengthen riparian buffer requirements. I suggest first focusing restoration efforts on those “source” parcels identified as having the greatest potential to contribute sediment and fecal coliform bacteria to Goose Creek, then shifting to preserving those “sink” parcels which have the greatest potential to decrease levels of sediment and fecal coliform. I have thus developed a flexible framework for prioritizing a landscape with the goal of maximizing water quality and using conservation easements as the tool to accomplish this protection. This methodology can be used by organizations with limited resources to focus efforts most efficiently.