DOZER DETOUR

Conservation Outpaces Development in the American West

By David Frey, 12-08-06

While ranchland continues to go under the bulldozer, conservation throughout the West – and across the country – is outpacing sprawl, according to an analysis of a Land Trust Alliance study by a Stanford University researcher.

The Land Trust Alliance study found the West leads the nation both in the number of acres saved and the number of land trusts. Colorado, Montana and New Mexico are among the states that have conserved the most acreage.

“This is good news,” says Jon Christensen, a research fellow for the Center for Environmental Science and Policy at Stanford University. “There’s good news about the power of conservation in the West.”

Christensen compared the study to Agriculture Department data on land lost to development. Across the country, some 2.2 million acres were developed between 2000 and 2005. Conservation efforts protected about 2.6 million acres during the same years.

“The trend is even more dramatic in the West,” Christensen writes in his report for Stanford’s Bill Lane Center for the Study of the North American West, “where approximately 450,000 acres have been conserved in recent years and 330,000 acres have been developed.”

Those efforts have been strongest in Colorado and Montana, where preserved land outpaced developed lands by more than five to one. In Montana, Christensen found, the number of preserved acres nearly equals the number of acres under development. Conserved acres also outnumbered developed acres in New Mexico and Wyoming.

“Conservation is arguably now a force that is on par with development in shaping the future of the West and the communities and lands in the West,” Christensen says. “I think that’s pretty extraordinary, and I think in many ways it’s very good news. And then as I was digging down into it, I think it raises some really important questions when you see the differences between states in the West.”

In six Western states – Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Utah – developed acres still outnumbered conserved acres. Nevada trailed all Western states in preserved land.

Officials with the Land Trust Alliance expect a federal tax incentive established this year for donations of conservation easements to spur more large-scale land preservation in the West.

The organization found the pace of land trust preservation nationwide more than tripled from the previous five years. Land protected by state and local land trusts doubled to 11.9 million acres. Adding national conservation groups, it estimates 37 million acres are conserved privately.

The results “took my breath away,” Land Trust Alliance President Rand Wentworth told USA Today. “They showed that a movement of local volunteer groups is making a huge difference in conserving places they love.”

Of course, lands preserved near Yellowstone may mean little to a Bitterroot Valley resident watching a giant subdivision planned next door. Christensen worries that often, wealthy areas see more preservation than poorer ones, creating concerns about the distribution of conserved lands.

“Some communities benefit more than others,” he says.

And since many of these lands are private, they remain off limits to hikers and others, preserving the views and habitats, perhaps, but not providing access.

“Are people going to continue to support this if they aren’t also able to enjoy it?” Christensen asks. “That’s a big question, I think.”

There are other questions, too. Because many of these lands are to be preserved forever, what happens to ranches when the families that care for them have had enough of farm life, or when the character of the surrounding communities and landscape changes?

But overall, Christensen says, he’s pleased by power land trusts are flexing in shaping Western landscapes.

“I do think there’s a huge difference between a suburb of Kentucky bluegrass and a ranch in the West,” he says. “I think there’s ample evidence that these ranchlands are very important, key parts of the ecosystems. … I do think it’s really important what happens to these lands.”

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