What can a landowner do to get professional help to manage timber and improve wildlife habitat on their property without breaking the bank? Professional help is out there for very low cost with government programs. One of these is the Conservation Activity Plan through the NRCS. The CAP 106 Plans that I write are are for forest and wildlife concerns but there are many other categories. The CAP plan’s purpose is to identify natural resource concerns and come up with a plan of action to address them. The Plan as well as the activities we suggest can use EQIP funds from the Farm Bill to pay for a large part of it. Funding you get depends on how your projects rank and ranking takes into consideration several parameters like how critical the resource is and how much benefit your project will provide.
Writing a Forest and Wildlife Management Plan is a great idea for any landowner. No matter the size of your property, whether it is a new purchase of has been in the family for a century, a plan developed with the help of a professional can give you some ideas to improve your property for wildlife and help protect your timber value.
When Writing a Wildlife Habitat Plan, a Forestry Plan or a CAP 106 Plan, I Address Conservation and Biodiversity Concerns
What is Conservation and Biodiversity? Why Is it Important to Think About these Concepts in Our Habitat Plan?
Conservation and biodiversity are terms that are thrown around a lot especially by pseudoscientists, self-described eco-warriors and the halfway educated.
The definition of conservation, in my mind anyway, has to be combined with biodiversity preservation. Conservation is not preservation, it is the stewardship of biodiversity. Biodiversity is the genetic integrity of ecosystems. There are many ecosystems on the Earth, and each of them has a group of particular life forms that developed to fit into the environment of that ecosystem to work together to generally live in harmony to the benefit of each other. The protection of intact ecosystems with all of the species that evolved to fit into it is the pure definition of conservation.
We don’t know what the degree of biodiversity actually is since we have only identified a small amount of the species that exist. The vertebrates and larger vertebrates that can be seen are mostly identified but there are many species of microbes that we don’t know about.
With the huge surge in worldwide population and the introduction of invasive species, can we realistically preserve intact ecosystems? I believe it is not, except in places like the Arctic, where there are very few people. However, we can achieve some preservation and conserve what is left. We should focus on the problems we can solve and let go of some of the lost causes.
I believe it was William Penn who said to “leave one acre in ten in trees.” This is a good way of thinking but we can envision a checkerboard patter of fragmented land use. Better to think of creating larger, intact wildlife corridors. In other words, identify on a landscape level areas that a complete ecosystem with intact biodiversity can exist and don’t mess with it. This is hard to do when the land ownership is so fragmented by human influence and out system of private land ownership. Some of my associates in conservation feel that private land ownership is part of the problem. Having traveled in communist countries, I would have to differ with this idea. I think that responsible private ownership is much better than state ownership in terms of doing good. Private NGOs like the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Pheasants Forever, Quality Deer Management Association, Grouse Society, The Nature Conservancy are all able to work with private landowners to improve conservation. The fact is most of the land is privately held in this country and the state and federal land is often the poorest and least productive – it is often land that nobody wanted back when the continent was being settled.
One does not need to use a government program to get a plan written and follow through with the activities, in fact I much prefer a landowner hire me and pay the freight himself. That way I can write a plan according to his needs and interests and we can move much much faster to get something done.
But, if you are not wealthy, a government payed plan may be the way to go. Here is the process to get this done;
Where Does the Money Come From?
The money comes from the Farm Bill and the amount allocated to this program depends on food stamps, forest fires and political whims, so although the Farm Bill is a sacred cow in Washington, the amount of funding varies.
Who Administers the Programs?
The USDA’s Natural Resources and Conservation Service gets the money from the Farm Bill and decides where it goes in their region – usually portions of States. So, your first step is to find your local NRCS office. In that office is a guy or gal who specializes in this stuff. These folks are knowledgeable about the programs and can help you through the process.
Who Writes the Plan?
NRCS can give you a list of TSPs in your area. This stands for Technical Service Providers. These are consultants who are qualified by NRCS to write a plan that addresses your particular resource problems. My area is Forestry or the CAP106. CAP, again stands for Conservation Activity Plan. You can pick from the list of providers. There will be some info on what their particular area of expertise is and also you should do some research on the person’s website before you choose a TSP. You may be able to get a look at a plan he/she has written to see if it is your style. I tend to be brief and realistic where some guys cut your property into a bunch of micro management segments.
Where to Start?
The government loves acronyms, here’s another one; EQIP pronounced equip even though there is no u. It stands for Environmental Quality Incentive Program. Or is it Improvement program? Who cares, just walk into NRCS and say, “I want to look into getting a CAP 106 Plan and apply for Equip funds” and someone will know what you are talking about and help you. The NRCS person will take a look at your property and discuss with you what your needs and concerns are and get you pointed in the right direction.
I’m not done with the acronyms and bureaucrats. In Pennsylvania, the NRCS defers the review of forestry or CAP106 plans to the DCNR Service Forester. So, once your TSP writes the Plan, the Service Forester has to approve of it. Too many cooks in the kitchen, right. If everyone plays nice and your Service Forester is cool, your plan should be approved as is with maybe a few changes – which are worked out with the TSP. If not, the Plan may be shredded and redone according to how he wants it.
Once it is approved by NRCS, DCNR and you, the Landowner the plan is done and official. Inside the Plan is a list of activities which have codes attached to them called Practice Codes. These are Conservation Practices. Some common ones that are in my plans are: 314 -brush management, 315 – herbaceous weed control, 666 – timber stand improvement, 338 prescribed burning. There are practices for road and landing building, road and landing restoration, planting, riparian buffer establishment, vernal pool building and wetland delineation. As you can see, there are many practices that can be funded if approved by the government guys. The key is to establish your resource concerns then schedule the activities to address them. Then you can hire contractors or do your own work and get paid for it. Nice. There are usually projects that are considered more important than others so are more likely to get funded. I you can do something to help an endangered species that shows up on your PNDI (I know, another one, sorry) this is the Pennsylvania Natural Diversity Index or something like that. It is a report (that I pay for) where I put in the coordinates and it will give me the endangered and threatened species known to be in the area. Once I have this I can make a plan that includes habitat enhancements for the those species. Often times, what is good for them is also good for many other species, including game. For instance, if the habitat is suitable for the Golden Winged or Cerulean Warbler, these are threatened species due to habitat loss from constant high grade harvesting. They need some early successional forest which is basically and regeneration harvest and with that, we need to do some fern spraying and maybe some planting. So, we have a 666, 315, and maybe sneak in a burn, trails, fencing and be able to food plot some of this. See how it goes? You can get a very expensive habitat project financed by taking care of the biodiversity and using conservation practices to improve your land.
