Planning November 2015

Preserving Large Landscapes

Eastern and western styles differ but align in important ways.

By Tom Daniels and Jack Wright

The term "rural lands" conjures up visions of wide-open spaces. But behind that vision are growing populations and development pressures for houses, commercial strips, resorts, and second homes. The goal of preserving blocks of thousands of acres to maintain those open spaces has come to the fore over the last 25 years. A comparison of agricultural land preservation in the eastern and western U.S. shows that the long-term protection of large landscapes requires planning, funding, and willing landowners.

Farmland preservation

Since the first farm was preserved in Suffolk County, New York, in 1974, farm and ranchlands have been converted to other uses at a rate of about 2.5 million acres a year, or a total of just over 100 million acres. Although today there are 900 million acres of farm and ranch land in this country, more than 500,000 acres are pasture or rangeland, while slightly more than 300 million are in harvested cropland. In response to the loss of agricultural land, state and local governments and private land trusts — with the help of federal dollars — have preserved more than five million acres of farm and ranch lands.

The primary technique for farmland preservation is the conservation easement, also known as the purchase or donation of development rights. A landowner signs a deed of easement with a private land trust or a government agency to restrict the development of the land to agricultural uses and open space. The landowner receives a payment from the land trust or government agency, though it is not uncommon for the landowner to donate some of the value of the conservation easement through a "bargain sale" of part cash and part donation. The landowner can use the donation as an income tax deduction. Some landowners have donated the entire easement value.

Another technique is the transfer of development rights, through which a landowner in a farming area (or TDR sending area) sells the right to develop to a developer who then is allowed to transfer that right to a location (receiving area) where the local government wants more development. Once the landowner sells the development rights, the landowner grants a conservation easement to the local government.

Local governments like the purchase or transfer of development rights because it is an effective way to restrict development without having to worry about the Fifth Amendment "takings" clause. The landowner is voluntarily selling or donating development rights, so there is no taking of land value by the government. For landowners, the sale of development rights offers a way to get cash out of their land without actually having to sell the land. And the land remains private property.

The key attraction for planners is that land preservation programs have the potential to create large, contiguous blocks of preserved land to channel growth and development to areas with adequate infrastructure and to minimize sprawl in the countryside. Planners know that if land is not preserved in large blocks, it can act as a magnet for development next door.

Landowner Greg Moore worked with the New Mexico Land Conservancy to conserve the entire Wagon Mound Ranch in Mora County, New Mexico — more than 23,000 acres that include a broad valley, riparian areas along Carrizo Creek, grassland, and numerous tree and cactus species

Saving Maryland and Pennsylvania farms

Maryland and Pennsylvania have a total population of nearly 19 million, most of whom are concentrated along the I-95 corridor between Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Yet, these two states accounted for more than $11 billion in farm output in 2012.

Maryland created the first state-level farmland preservation program in 1977, and Pennsylvania followed in 1988. The two states rank first and second in farmland acres preserved nationally, with more than 500,000 acres preserved in Pennsylvania and 320,000 acres in Maryland, accounting for almost one-sixth of all the agricultural land preserved so far in the U.S.

Together, the 10 leading counties in Pennsylvania and Western Maryland have amassed more than 620,000 acres of preserved farmland, exceeding one-tenth of the nation's total preserved farmland acres. To preserve so much farmland in a region with intense development pressure has required not just steady and abundant funding from government and private sources, but also planning and land-use regulations to protect farms while they are waiting for the preservation dollars to become available and to protect farms from encroaching development after they are preserved.

Research by Tom Daniels and his colleagues shows that these 10 counties in Pennsylvania and Maryland have amassed more than 620,000 acres, exceeding one-tenth of the nation's total preserved acres of farmlandBaltimore County, Maryland, adopted an urban growth boundary, known as the Urban-Rural Demarcation Line, in 1967 to keep sewer and water lines out of its northern rural lands. Over time, the county implemented very restrictive agricultural zoning that allows only one house per 50 acres for a lot of record over 100 acres, and only two lots for lots of record from two to 100 acres. To date, the county has preserved more than 62,000 acres.

Montgomery County, Maryland, just northwest of Washington, D.C., pioneered the use of transfer of development rights and has preserved more than 52,000 acres through TDRs. The county began its TDR program by downzoning its agricultural area from one house per five acres to one house per 25 acres and giving each landowner one TDR per five acres owned. The county then designated receiving areas closer to the nation's capital. The county has preserved an additional 21,000 acres through the purchase of development rights.

"I don't think anyone had a clear goal of how much farmland to preserve or how to preserve it in contiguous blocks," says Deborah Bowers, program manager of the Carroll County, Maryland, farmland preservation program. "The most successful county programs have been around for a long time and have steadily put together large blocks of preserved farmland, thanks to landowners who love their land and do not want to see it developed."

Lancaster County in southeastern Pennsylvania has preserved more farmland than any other U.S. county: 105,000 acres. A key to the county's success has been the partnership between the county and the Lancaster Farmland Trust, a local land trust. With an annual farm output of almost $1.5 billion, the county is also the cornerstone of the agricultural industry in the region. The county has combined the purchase and donation of development rights to farmland with urban growth boundaries (since 1993) and agricultural zoning that covers more than half of the county.

Thanks to these efforts, it's likely that the region will have an agricultural industry far into the future, as well as the open spaces that people love to look at.

Preserving western lands

The West's wide open spaces have inspired dozens of gigantic conservation projects that link the conservation of private agricultural land with publicly owned wildlife habitats. The most famous of the region's 122 large landscape initiatives — organized by the Practitioners' Network for Large Landscape Conservation — are the Yellowstone to Yukon and Crown of the Continent bioregional efforts to assure ecological connectivity in the face of climate change and mining, forestry, and ranching activities.

The large landscapes initiatives encourage collaborative ecosystem management by government agencies across jurisdictions. Some of the West's landscape programs could exceed 100 million acres, a scale that places land conservation at the center of a sustainable future.

The widely accepted theory of island biogeography — defined in the 1960s by ecologists E.O. Wilson and Robert MacArthur — stresses that large, connected preserves house more species and are more resilient than small, fragmented ones. Landscape ecology now drives conservation programs across the West, with land trusts and growth management strategies playing a much larger role than state and local government funding. This is in contrast to the East, where public funding measures have been important (for example, the $12.4 billion approved by voters in Florida in 2014 for open space protection and the restoration of the Everglades).

In the West, the acres protected by land trusts stand out: California (2.3 million acres), Colorado (1.2 million acres), and Montana (1.1 million acres). Nearly all of this preservation involves working agricultural and forest lands.

Wagon Mound Ranch in Mora County, New Mexico

Ranch land leads the way

Ranchers control a large share of the private property in the West, and they traditionally resist county or state land-use planning programs. While national parks, national forests, and wilderness areas tend to be the focus of many of the region's large landscape initiatives, conserving contiguous expanses of ranch land is essential if the West's wildlife habitats, open spaces, historic sites, and watersheds are to survive.

One group that has stepped forward is the Partnership of Rangeland Trusts, an association of land trusts formed by stock growers associations in California, Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Oregon, Texas, and Wyoming. Twenty years ago, many of these ranch groups opposed conservation easements. Now, these trusts have preserved 2.2 million acres of agricultural lands — an area the size of Yellowstone National Park — through donated and purchased conservation easements.

Also worth noting is the New Mexico Land Conservancy, a statewide land trust that has preserved 344,000 acres, much of it in support of large landscapes projects. Although not a member of PORT, NMLC has taken on the job of protecting ranch lands from subdivision.

"We help communities and landowners come together to save the places they love," says Scott Wilber, NMLC's executive director. "NMLC is all about voluntary, financially compensating tools such as conservation easements. We're not here to tell anyone how to manage a ranch. I grew up in Wyoming. I know ranching culture, and you have to build trust."

NMLC holds conservation easements on more than 64,000 acres in the Greater Gila Ecosystem, terrain with more than 500,000 acres of wilderness at its core. These ranch-land easements protect critical winter range habitat for elk and other species as well as a scenic buffer for wilderness lands. Critically endangered gray wolves, endangered Little Colorado River spinedace, and the threatened Gila trout are also being protected.

Yet the goals of ranchers mostly focus on family-based agriculture. Easement donor Zeke Shortes's view is typical: "My family wanted to do something to preserve a legacy provided us by my ancestors," he says. "The area has suffered from the influx of subdivisions, and has threatened the sacredness that first entranced my grandfather."

Michael Scisco, formerly on the staff of NMLC, agrees: "The conservation of ranches has multiple benefits not only for wildlife but also provides sustainability and security to agricultural operations."

In northeastern New Mexico, NMLC holds easements on 31,000 acres of prairie grasslands riparian ecosystems, archeological treasures, and big game habitats in a region called the "Hi-Lo Country," where the Great Plains meet the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. One 7,500-acre easement surrounds the Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site, a once vital stop on the Santa Fe Trail.

Wagon ruts, artifacts, historic sites, and scenic beauty are now secure. The owners may incrementally place easements on their entire 94,000-acre ranch. NMLC has a goal of protecting 500,000 acres in the Hi-Lo County, much of it former Spanish and Mexican-era land grants that have been broken into numerous ranches.

In New Mexico's southwest "Bootheel" region, NMLC holds an easement on the 1,760-acre Bioresearch Ranch. The property contains Chihuahuan Desert grasslands and oak woodlands in the Peloncillo Mountains, one of the country's most biodiverse landscapes. Rare and endangered species include jaguars — moving between Mexico and the U.S. — desert bighorn sheep, collared peccary, coatimundi, desert tortoise, and Mexican long-tongued bats.

Scott Wilber of NMLC is excited about the West's success in large landscape conservation: "We are breaking through with ranchers, building trust, doing deals," he says. "When they first contact us about putting their land under a conservation easement, they are very concerned about losing their private property rights. Our response is always that it's their choice. After all, conservation is as much a private property right as development."

Across the West, increasing numbers of ranchers and farmers are exercising that right by safeguarding an enormous agricultural legacy while simultaneously protecting wildlife habitat. The income and estate tax benefits of conservation easement transactions are a powerful driver of these achievements.

The preservation of agricultural land has predominated in the East in part because the federal government owns relatively little land there, whereas it owns most of the land in many western states. In the East, state and local governments have been more active in preserving agricultural land; in the West, federal funding, grants from private foundations, and land trusts have been especially important.

In safeguarding large landscapes, the West has a big advantage because ranchers typically own thousands of acres, and a single conservation easement can preserve a huge area. The New Mexico Land Conservancy has preserved a 30,000-acre ranch in a single conservation easement. To preserve that many acres in Pennsylvania or Maryland would involve about 300 easements because of the small average size of the farms.

The owner of the Wagon Mound Ranch conserved his land in part to protect it from subdivision and development

Lessons learned

Efforts to preserve large landscapes hold several lessons for planners.

  • Plan for preservation, not just development.
  • Preservation takes time.
  • Preservation is expensive; a dedicated funding source is a big help.
  • Public-private partnerships are important.
  • Preserve large contiguous blocks.
  • Don't be afraid to preserve land adjacent to development.
  • A package of planning techniques is essential in areas under heavy development pressures.

Tom Daniels is a professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of The Environmental Planning Handbook, whose second edition was published by APA Planners Press in 2014. Jack Wright is a professor in the Department of Geography at New Mexico State University.


Resources

Images: Top — Landowner Greg Moore worked with the New Mexico Land Conservancy to conserve the entire Wagon Mound Ranch in Mora County, New Mexico — more than 23,000 acres that include a broad valley, riparian areas along Carrizo Creek, grassland, and numerous tree and cactus species. Photo by Evalyn Bemis. Middle — Wagon Mound Ranch in Mora County, New Mexico. Photo by Evalyn Bemis. Bottom — The owner of the Wagon Mound Ranch conserved his land in part to protect it from subdivision and development. Photos by Evalyn Bemis.

Map: Top Counties in Farm Preservation, 2015 — Research by Tom Daniels and his colleagues shows that these 10 counties in Pennsylvania and Maryland have amassed more than 620,000 acres, exceeding one-tenth of the nation's total preserved acres of farmland. Map by Ethan Daniels; colorized by Dolly Holmes.

Practitioners' Network for Large Landscape Conservation: www.largelandscapenetwork.org

Partnership of Rangeland Trusts: www.maintaintherange.org

New Mexico Land Conservancy: www.nmlandconservancy.org