The Regional Conservation Partnership Program: What's in It for Land Trusts?

It’s not often that land trusts, such as the accredited Gallatin Valley Land Trust in Montana, are able to find new sources of funding for conservation projects already in the pipeline. But early last year Congress passed what ultimately would be one of its few major bipartisan achievements: the 2014 Farm Bill. The bill, revised by Congress every five years, streamlined several conservation programs that previously focused separately on regional watershed health and protection into a new Regional Conservation Partnership Program.

Before Gallatin Valley Land Trust embarked on the first round of proposals in summer 2014, it had already catalogued potential landowners for working land easements, but discovered that RCPP allowed it to think about conservation and ensuring continued agricultural production in a more systematic and collaborative way. “We could have a broader watershed dialogue — not just identifying one imperiled stream at a time,” says Kelly Pohl, GVLT program director. Ultimately, GVLT is working with other regional partners to use easements and other USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service restoration programs to protect water quality and quantity, stream health and productive agricultural soils throughout the lower Gallatin Valley basin and the headwaters of the Missouri River. Its RCPP proposal was approved to the tune of more than $3.7 million.

“RCPP puts our partners in the driver’s seat,” said Ray Dotson,

NRCS acting state conservationist in Montana, after the announcement was made. “Projects are led locally and demonstrate the value of strong public-private partnerships that deliver solutions to tough natural resource challenges.”

“We are grateful that NRCS has invested in our local conservation partnerships,” says GVLT Executive Director Penelope Pierce, “and we’re thrilled about the impact this will have on conservation in the Gallatin Valley.”

Over the five-year period of the RCPP, more than $1.2 billion will be awarded from USDA to local nonprofits, producers, tribal entities and landowners for projects that improve soil health, water quality and quantity, wildlife habitat and air quality on private land. RCPP is funded annually with at least $100 million. Most RCPP projects will use their funding through the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program, Conservation Stewardship Program, Environmental Quality Incentives Program and Healthy Forests Reserve Program, combining these and other actions to maximize their conservation impact. NRCS is looking for projects that break the mold of traditional conservation programs. Indeed, it even allows for waivers of some rules of the other programs in order to broaden the ability for effective conservation. GVLT has already seen benefits beyond traditional conservation metrics from its project: an increase in landowner-to-landowner outreach and dialogue on conservation programs, stronger partnerships with other groups outside the scope of the project and a solid working relationship with its local NRCS field office. “This grant was a great opportunity to invest more in the work we are already doing and to strengthen local relationships through collaboration,” says Pohl.

The first round of projects was announced in January 2015: $370 million in federal grants for 115 projects in 50 states and
Puerto Rico, leveraging more than $400 million in matching contributions from partners. Projects are scaled over a five-year timeline. The program’s mission is ambitious and focused: Create effective, measurable and innovative on-the-ground solutions to intractable regional problems; leverage resources from partners; and maximize participation from partners, producers and landowners.

There are three different funding pools from which a land trust can choose when applying to RCPP. Each pool has its own priority resource concerns (as detailed in the announcement for program funding) that projects should seek to address.

1. Eight Critical Conservation Areas across the country (receiving 35% of total annual funding). The CCAs are broad, overlapping regions that target landscape-scale conservation and specific resource concerns: the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, Mississippi River Basin, Great Lakes Region, California Bay Delta, Prairie Grasslands Region, Colorado River Basin, Longleaf Pine Range and Columbia River Basin.

2. Funds awarded by NRCS national staff (40%). The national pool’s priorities in 2015 include multistate projects that address at least one of the following: drought concerns, water quality, soil health, inadequate fish and wildlife habitat and air quality.

3. Funds awarded by NRCS state offices (25%). NRCS staff collaborate with the State Technical Committees in developing priorities and a process for reviewing and selecting state-funded proposals.

Northern California’s Sonoma County has its share of water conservation and supply concerns over the devastating drought. The heart of wine country, Sonoma County is trying to balance the needs of a diverse set of agricultural producers with ecosystem health for threatened and endangered species and, of course, for people. The Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District and the accredited Sonoma Land Trust are partnering with the county’s water agency and 25 other local groups to apply for an RCPP grant they are calling Venture Conservation. They hope to address what have become perennial issues in the county and in California: declining surface and groundwater supplies, water quality problems and inadequate fish and wildlife habitat.

Under current practices the county must balance water deliveries during the dry summer months for agriculture and ensure adequate water levels and flow for the endangered Coho salmon and other species. But by working with other partners, there could be a better way. As James Gore, a Sonoma County supervisor says, “By aligning federal, state and local resources, we can create a force multiplier that turns our investment into impact—resulting in more targeted and efficient conservation on the ground and achieving the outcomes we seek for water quality, water quantity and endangered species.” The open space district and Sonoma Land Trust will help lead this effort by acquiring easements and implementing best practices to restore riparian corridors and floodplain habitat to achieve sustainable water supplies and healthy ecosystems.

As water becomes a scarcer resource in California, maximizing conservation and collaboration among resource agencies, conservation groups and landowners will become all the more important.

Just as venture capital provides the seed money for innovative ideas and products further south in Silicon Valley, partners in the Sonoma County RCPP proposal believe the grant they are applying for in 2015 will provide the seed capital necessary for enhancing efficiency, effectiveness and an alignment on a shared vision for the future of the county’s water resources and management and galvanize a dynamic and collaborative partnership that is outcome-oriented. “Instead of measuring success based on the amount of resources or actions, the initiative will be measured based upon its collective impact and what we achieve in outcomes,” says Bill Keene, the general manager of the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District. “By using this proposal as a tool to spur our efforts, the partners identified what they could contribute to and how they could co-create the effort, rather than the traditional model where everyone merely stated what they needed.”

Other projects also seek to base performance on outcomes and impact on the broader community. In the northern end of Michigan’s fruitbelt, land trusts have partnered with tribes, local government agencies and other nonprofits to address habitat and water quality concerns along Lake Michigan. The Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy and Leelanau Conservancy (both accredited) have partnered with the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians on an application in 2015 that details restoring imperiled fish stocks by improving stream connectivity and removing dams, and reducing pollution loads through conservation practices and increasing the amount of land under easement by 26% in an area around Grand Traverse Bay.

The accredited Athens Land Trust in Georgia is enlisting multiple programs to simultaneously address several regional problems, including dwindling wildlife habitat, poor soil health, threatened farmland and compromised water quality. Solutions include improving farmers’ conservation practices, establishing easements on farms, improving soil health and protecting water quality in the Savannah, Oconee, Ogeechee, Ocmulgee, Satilla and Altamaha watersheds. The RCPP grant, awarded in last year’s round, allowed the land trust to focus on “shovel-ready” projects and to expand to historically underserved communities surrounding Athens. The grant has also helped the land trust to improve communications and collaboration with local and nontraditional partners—fulfilling the “innovative” criterion that was a goal of the program during its creation in the Farm Bill.

In the 2015 round, NRCS will award $225 million (with a maximum amount of $10 million per project). Preproposals were submitted this past summer; NRCS notified applicants if they were moving forward in early September; final proposals were due in November; and the announcement of successful projects will be made in January 2016. The announcement of funding for 2016 projects will be made in the spring.