Setting Priorities for Land Conservation (1993) / Chapter Skim
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3 The Land Acqisition Process
3 The Land Acqisition Process
Pages 51-102
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From page 51... ...
used monies accumulated in the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund. The infrequent National Park Service (NPS)
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From page 52... ...
had little involvement in land aquisition. The Land and Water Conservation Fund The availability of fiends for federal land acquisition increased dramatically wig Me passage of Me Land and Water Conservation Fund Act of 1964.
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From page 53... ...
The national forest system as a whole is to be managed for multiple uses, but He management of particular areas is likely to emphasize only one or a few uses. That is reflected in the limited au~ority conferred by the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act for land acquisition using monies from He EWCF: The only areas that may be acquired by the USES using EWCF monies are inholdings within national forest wilderness areas, inholdings within other national forest areas that "are primarily of value for outdoor recreation areas," and areas not to exceed 3,000 acres that are adjacent to an existing national forest boundary and that would compose "an integral part of a forest recreational management area."
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From page 54... ...
At the time, however, no other sources of funding were available for acquisitions. Two years later, when Congress enacted the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, it authorized USFWS to use EWCF monies to acquire lands for the incidental recreation purposes of the Refuge Recreation Act.
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From page 55... ...
authorizes land acquisition by BLM but does not specify Be source of funds for such acquisition. The Land and Water Conservation Fund Act does not make explicit mention of BEM, but EWCF monies have been used to acquire land for outdoor recreation by BLM since at least the early 1970s.
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From page 56... ...
New federal lands sometimes also entail expanded responsibilities for federal agencies. For example, the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area gave NPS substantial new responsibilities for providing urban recreation in the Los Angeles region, and the use of the greenline park concept has led to significant demands for land-use planning and coordination with state and local governments.
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From page 59... ...
In 1961, Congress established We Cape Cod National Seashore and authorized federal money for parkland acquisition from private owners; the 1964 Land and Water Conservation Fund Act
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The Cape Cod Seashore has adopted use guidelines for private properly that direct private owners of improved property to comply wig the act; this formula effectively created federal zoning in He form of indirect federal contro' over local land-use decisions. Limitations on acquisition authority and criteria for priorities within individual units are reflected in land-protection plans prepared for each NPS unit.
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From page 62... ...
; . Probability of damage within 3 years and pellllanence of damage; Whether it protected an established area; · Population within ~ and 2 hours of driving time; · Availability of acquisition alternatives; Operation, maintenance, and development costs; Development and timing; Willingness of seller; Whether condemnation authority existed and willingness to use it; Organizational capability; Local support; Whether congressional oversight or approval was required; Whether it was coordinated with other planning processes; Whether it would have completed or continued an existing project or started a new area; · Whether the authorization was general or specific; · Whether it was eligible for funding from a special account Nat was available under We 1978 Omnibus Parks Act of 1978.
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From page 63... ...
Land acquisition mainly is related to the national forests, but the cooperative USFS protection and management programs for state arid private forests might be relevant tangentially to national forest land · · acquisitions. Mandates The IS97 Forest Service organic act provided that national forests be established only "to improve and protect die forest within the boundaries, or for the purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of the citizens of the United States.
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From page 64... ...
The national forests are described aptly as lands of many uses, wig no one of Me listed uses having automatic statutory priority over Me others. Setting priorities locally is left to the land managers, and this policy was given additional statutory blessing in the land-use planning provisions of the National Forest Management Act of 1976.
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From page 65... ...
secondarily, within scenic areas and along historic travel routes of the Nation, which are often more remotely located." FATIMA authorizes USFS land acquisition to provide access to national forests over nonfederal lands. Other acts establishing specific units, such as national recreation areas, provide additional land-acquisition authority.
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From page 66... ...
, the regulations include goals such as maintaining viable populations of native and desired nonnative species well distributed throughout their geographic ranges and protecting and restoring natural biological communities; conservation of biological diversity, including recovery of threatened and endangered species; sustaining population viability of species that are sensitive to anticipated trends in environmental conditions or human activities; protecting rare, unique, and highly productive communities of plants and animals; and managing habitats and populations to produce ecological conditions Hat sustain human uses of species desired as commercial, recreational, or subsistence resources. Acquisition Criteria -Land-acquisition needs initially are identified in Individual forest plans.
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From page 67... ...
But many areas identified for acquisition in individual forest plans might not be considered of high priority once they are ranked against those from other national forests. USFS uses a point system similar to the one used by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
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From page 70... ...
Many were acquired under Me authority of the MBCA "for use as an inviolate sanctuary, or for any over management purpose, for migratory birds." Monies to acquire Rose refuges come from Me Migratory Bird Conservation Fund, comprising the revenues from Me sale of migratory bird hunting and conservation stamps. About 40 units of Me national wildlife refuge system were acquired under Me authority of Me ESA, using monies from Me EWCF to conserve one or more Greatened or endangered species.
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N. D.~ 1tBUt-,IWI IJIGURE 3-3 The national wildlife refuge system.
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From page 73... ...
THE LAND ACQUISITION PROCESS 73 U N ITED STATES F158 AND WILDLIFE SERVICE +l a. -~_ ~ ~lDi~= eciAT~b ~ ·~=f -`o' ~ it AT ~ a_ orel~ + ~;W~,~.~` ; L ~ i/ ~ 4\ .~ ~ ~ ~ .
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From page 74... ...
The key concerns expressed in the criteria for endangered species are recovery priorities, species status, and consistency with endangered species priorities (GAO, 1988~; for migratory birds, they are habitat loss and population management objectives; for wetlands, they are habitat and threat; and for significant biological diversity they are degree of diversity at various levels, significance of protection, long-term viability, and protection of species of particular management concern. Fishery resources, a new target, emphasizes anadromous and Great Lakes fishery resources represented by indigenous or native species within their original range whose population has been reduced to suboptimal levels as a result of habitat degradation and excessive use.
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From page 77... ...
This might have been in response to problems caused by some proposed exchanges across state fines-for example, a proposed exchange in the mid-1960s of BEM lands in southwestern Oregon for lands in the Point Reyes National Seashore in California gave rise to controversy within the Oregon congressional delegation and the Department of the Interior (Comptroller General of the United States, 1966; Wheatiey, 1970~. FI~PMA directs BEM to manage the public lands under its jurisdiction "in a manner which recognizes the Nation's needs for domestic sources of minerals, food, timber, and fiber." But these lands are also to be managed fin a manner that will protect the quality of scientific, scenic, ecological, environmental, air and atmospheric, water resource, and archeological values; ~at, where appropriate, will preserve and protect certain public lands in their natural condition; Cat will provide food and habitat for fish and wildlife and domestic animals; and that will provide for outdoor recreation and human occupancy and use." All of this is to be done on the basis of multiple use and sustained yield.
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From page 80... ...
80 SElTING PRIOR117ES FOR LAND CONSERVATION FIGURE 34 Continued
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From page 86... ...
Lands acquired by exchange that are within the boundaries of any unit become a part of that unit (e.g., national forest system, national park system, national wildlife refilge system, and national wild and scenic rivers system)
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. · a' < V ~ The need for systematic ranking of land acquisitions among agencies has become apparent for budgeting fevers funds, because no cross
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From page 88... ...
To identify acquisitions to be included in Me federal budget, each agency's list of priorities is ranked based on uniform OMB criteria, adjusted to reflect department policies, and is submitted annually to the Land Acquisition Working Group.2 The working group sends its final submission to OMB with written justifications for high-priority acquisitions. OMB criteria are used to establish a single list ranking the requested acquisitions of all the agencies.
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From page 89... ...
After 1980, when HCRS was abolished, the land-management agencies began to function independently. THE CONGRESS Congress has three formal types of direct authority over the acquisition of federal land.
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From page 90... ...
(However, USES goes to Congress for specific legislation whenever it wants to create a new purchase unit to add to the national forest system.) Third, Congress specifically may forbid agencies to make certain acquisitions, even when the agency is otherwise permitted, or may restrict acquisitions in a given project to transactions with willing sellers or to acquisitions that do not raise the aggregate amount of federal land in a particular county or state beyond a specified level.
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From page 93... ...
The state grants portion of the EWCF has declined substantially over the past 15 years (Table 3-~. This is the result of budget constraints at all levels of government, as well as growing congressional interest in shifting the balance of funding toward acquisition of federal lands.
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From page 94... ...
Furthermore, with high unemployment rates, tribes face great pressure to develop nonrenewable resources. The General Allotment Act of 1887 was particularly detrimental to native Americans, because it divided reservation land into small, individual units that could be sold to anyone, disrupting traditional collective landownership practices and use rights and resulting in fragmented landtenure patterns within many reservations (White and Cronon, 1988;
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From page 97... ...
The American Indian Policy Review Commission found We problem with landownership on Indian reservations to be one of the biggest obstacles to future tribal economic and community development. Many tribes are seeking to reacquire lands Aide reservation boundaries Hat were lost as a result of Be General Allotment Act or through various types of land transactions.
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From page 99... ...
For the American Land Conservancy, the Conservation Fund, and He Trust for Public Land, those criteria largely reflect agency criteria (H. Burgess, ALC, pers.
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From page 100... ...
The resulting lists are Me basis for local advocacy of acquisitions as well as for comprehensive proposals such as The Conservation Alterr~ve. RATIONAL ANALYSIS AND POLITICS IN THE ACQUISITION PROCESS The differences between agency lists and He projects eventually funded by Congress have led some observers to charge that political considerations override criteria Hat might be at least described as systematic, and at best as embodying a certain amount of objectivity, rationality, and science.
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From page 101... ...
Interests expressed in the political process bring to bear vital information; for example, testimony from landowners can make clear He human costs of a given acquisition, and pressure from urban constituencies can remind policy-makers that there is a demand for urban recreation. Sometimes, political activity even becomes the conduit for scientific information, as has occurred when scientists and acquisition intermediaries inventory natural areas and lobby for Heir protection.
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