Preserving native grassland: Can Sodsaver reduce cropland conversion?

Claassen, Roger; Wade, Tara; Breneman, Vince; Williams, Ryan J.; Loesch, Chuck

doi:10.2489/jswc.73.3.67a

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…The subset of conversion which occurs on long-term habitat is likely to lead to particularly high losses in native plant diversity, wildlife provisioning, and other ecosystem services 18 , 19 . The large area of long-term grassland conversion we identified provides strong evidence of widespread clearing of previously undisturbed lands, especially when considered alongside other reports of confirmed native prairie conversion throughout the US 20 , 21 , 57 , 58 . This ecologically significant loss of intact habitat indicates that if remaining virgin land is to be preserved, stronger protections will be required such as those afforded through federal policy, conservation incentives, and/or supply chain interventions 59 .…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

Cropland expansion in the United States produces marginal yields at high costs to wildlife

et al. 2020

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Recent expansion of croplands in the United States has caused widespread conversion of grasslands and other ecosystems with largely unknown consequences for agricultural production and the environment. Here we assess annual land use change 2008–16 and its impacts on crop yields and wildlife habitat. We find that croplands have expanded at a rate of over one million acres per year, and that 69.5% of new cropland areas produced yields below the national average, with a mean yield deficit of 6.5%. Observed conversion infringed upon high-quality habitat that, relative to unconverted land, had provided over three times higher milkweed stem densities in the Monarch butterfly Midwest summer breeding range and 37% more nesting opportunities per acre for waterfowl in the Prairie Pothole Region of the Northern Great Plains. Our findings demonstrate a pervasive pattern of encroachment into areas that are increasingly marginal for production, but highly significant for wildlife, and suggest that such tradeoffs may be further amplified by future cropland expansion.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

Cropland expansion in the United States produces marginal yields at high costs to wildlife

et al. 2020

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“…In the United States, their use has elevated rapidly, with a 50% increase in area under easement since 2010 (Land Trust Alliance, 2020). Despite the increase in easements, the extent to which they are delivering the desired impact remains understudied (see Braza, 2017; Claassen et al, 2017; Nolte et al, 2019). Here, by impact we refer to the difference between the outcomes that were observed in the presence of easements and the outcomes expected in the absence of easements (Ferraro, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing prioritization measures for a private land conservation program in the U.S. Prairie Pothole Region

Kemink

Pressey

Adams

et al. 2023

Conservat Sci and Prac

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Private land conservation has become an important tool for protecting biodiversity and habitat, but methods for prioritizing and scheduling conservation on private land are still being developed. While return on investment methods have been suggested as a potential path forward, the different processes linking private landscapes to the socioeconomic systems in which they are embedded create unique challenges for scheduling conservation with this approach. We investigated a range of scheduling approaches within a return on investment framework for breeding waterfowl and broods in the Prairie Pothole Region of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana. Current conservation targeting for waterfowl in the region focuses mostly on the distribution and abundance of breeding waterfowl. We tested whether MaxGain approaches for waterfowl conservation differed from MinLoss approaches in terms of return on investment and which approach performed best in avoiding loss of waterfowl and broods separately. We also examined variation in results based upon the temporal scale of the abundance layers used for input and compared the region's current scheduling approach with results from our simulations. Our results suggested that MinLoss was the most efficient scheduling approach for both breeding waterfowl and broods and that using just breeding waterfowl to target areas for conservation programs might cause organizations to overlook important areas for broods, particularly over shorter timespans. The higher efficiency of MinLoss approaches in our simulations also indicated that incorporating probability of wetland drainage into decision‐making improved the overall return on investment. We recommend that future conservation scheduling for easements in the region and for private land conservation in general include some form of return on investment or cost‐effective analysis to make conservation more transparent.

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“…Several issues exist pertaining to grassland easement acquisition. First, due to the relatively high cropping returns and land values in the past 15 years (Davis, 2021), the average easement payment has increased significantly (Claassen et al, 2017; Walker et al, 2013). Therefore, to ensure easement program efficiency, easement acquisition has to be carefully evaluated.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…They do not consider uncertainty about land‐use returns and possible land‐use outcomes resulting from this uncertainty. Because this uncertainty is critical to determining the additionality of environmental benefits from easement acquisition (i.e., the difference in environmental benefits provided by a grassland tract with and without easement acquisition), ignoring this uncertainty results in additionality not being considered in the easement acquisition process (Claassen et al, 2017).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite its importance to conservation efficiency, additionality has not been explicitly considered in easement acquisition practices (Walker et al, 2013). Claassen et al (2017) find that only about 0.28% of the grasslands protected under easement in the PPR would have been converted per year had there been no easement protection, indicating low additionality of existing easement programs. Focusing on donated easements and on the efficiency of easement tax credits as a tool to incentivize easement enrollment, Vercammen (2019) finds that easement tax credits can be welfare-decreasing.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Grassland easement acquisition: Conversion hazard rate, additionality, spatial spillover, and heuristics

Miao

Feng

Hennessy

et al. 2022

Applied Eco Perspectives Pol

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This study investigates optimal grassland easement acquisition strategies with a focus on the roles of environmental benefit additionality and spatial spillover effect of grassland conversion. Numerical analysis shows that the optimal solution under a targeting strategy that does not consider any spatial spillover effect may secure less environmental benefit additionality than does a heuristic algorithm that considers spatial spillover. Moreover, heuristic algorithms that consider either conversion probability or spatial spillover can generally achieve more than 97% of environmental benefit additionality obtained under the optimal solution of a targeting strategy that considers both additionality and spatial spillover.

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Preserving native grassland: Can Sodsaver reduce cropland conversion?

Cited by 8 publications

References 28 publications

Cropland expansion in the United States produces marginal yields at high costs to wildlife

Cropland expansion in the United States produces marginal yields at high costs to wildlife

Assessing prioritization measures for a private land conservation program in the U.S. Prairie Pothole Region

Grassland easement acquisition: Conversion hazard rate, additionality, spatial spillover, and heuristics

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