The Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GPLCC) is using focus groups of private landowners to identify ways to enhance conservation of playas in Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado Nebraska and New Mexico. The GPLCC hopes that by engaging private landowners in discussions about their views of current playa conservation programs, they can make the programs more attractive and effective.

Playas, sometimes referred to as playa "lakes" are naturally occurring, seasonal wetlands that form in shallow depressions in the southern Great Plains. Typically, playas have no inlet or outlet stream. Rather, playas represent catchments of surface flow that pools in low-lying areas. The clay soils found in the bottom of playas hold water on the surface, but playas also act as a pathway for water to seep into the ground. In fact, playas are believed to be the primary source of recharge for the central and southern portions of the Ogallala Aquifer.

In addition to their importance in hydrologic processes, playas provide vital habitat for a host of wetland plants, invertebrates, amphibians and waterfowl. Playas serve as critical resting and "refueling" areas for millions of migratory birds, which makes the future of playas import at a continental scale. Given the vital role these wetlands play, the GPLCC identified conservation and restoration of playas as one of its top three priorities.

The number of playas that occurred historically is impossible to determine. What is known is that thousands of playas have been plowed into cropland or ditched and drained into irrigation systems. Current high commodity and cattle prices provide an incentive for private landowners to maximize the number of acres under production, which may be accelerating loss of functional playas.

There are a number of federal and state conservation programs designed to encourage private landowners to maintain or restore playas on their land. Concerned that these programs were not as effective as they could be, the GPLCC decided to identify impediments to playa conservation in early 2013. In response, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a request for proposals to address this issue. The successful bid came from DJ Case and Associates (DJ Case), who proposed to partner with the Playa Lakes and Rainwater Basin Joint Ventures to use a series of focus groups with private landowners across the southern Great Plains. This approach provided a way to engage landowners directly to find out their opinions about playas, and playa conservation programs.

Focus groups are a qualitative research method that involves guided discussion among a small number of carefully selected individuals that allow a much more in-depth understanding of the participants' attitudes, values and beliefs than can be obtained through quantitative methods of human dimensions research, such as surveys. Focus groups are often used most effectively in combination with surveys ? allowing researchers to probe deeper into why participants think, feel, and do the things they say they do in quantitative research. This project is a follow-up to a 2006 survey conducted in the Playa Lakes region, and the discussions were based largely on those initial results. Focus groups are commonly used in marketing research, but have been much less frequently used in conservation.

Project Leader Phil Seng with DJ Case worked with Joint Venture staff to organize 13 different focus group discussions in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, New Mexico and Colorado. Joint Venture staff worked with their partners to recruit landowners to participate. A total of 72 landowners participated in the 13 focus groups. All participants were landowners with at least one playa on their property. In each focus group, the moderator led a discussion about what the participants knew about the hydrology and ecology of playas, their views on how management of playas affected production on their land, and their awareness of and attitudes about playa conservation methods and programs.

Seng reported that the landowners provided excellent insights the GPLCC and its partners can use to frame future playa conservation efforts. He presented preliminary results of the focus groups to the Playa Lakes Joint Venture on January 29^th and the Rainwater Basin Joint Venture on February 11.

Briefly, Seng reported that many landowners currently farm or graze their playas, believing that production is their highest and best use, and without much understanding of the connection between playas and aquifer recharge or wildlife benefits. Others take pride in maintaining playas on their land for their hydrological, ecological, aesthetic or recreational value, such as providing good places to hunt or view wildlife. Landowners emphasized that economic factors are the most important driver of their decisions regarding playas. To be effective, conservation programs need to provide landowners with a similar return on their investment as potential use of the land for production agriculture or ranching. Attitudes toward working with government agencies varied widely, but even among landowners not philosophically opposed to working with agencies, the need to minimize bureaucracy and provide flexibility and common sense were of paramount importance.

Seng will discuss results of the project with the full GPLCC Steering Committee in late February in Kansas City.  A complete, final report on the project will be released by the end of May. With those results in hand, GPLCC and its partners can adapt future efforts to be more attractive to landowners and more effective in conserving playas.

"This project demonstrates the value of human dimensions research to conservation and the LCC network," said Chris Smith, WMI's Western Field Representative who administered the grant that funded DJ Case's efforts. "By making the effort to reach out to the farmers and ranchers who own and manage the vast majority of the land on the Great Plains, the GPLCC was able to gather information that is every bit as important to designing effective conservation as knowing the species composition or estimating the number of birds using playas." Several of the LCC's have recognized the importance of human dimensions research and are developing capacity to supplement biological and physical science with social science research. (cs)

The Wildlife Management Institute (WMI), in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is providing support to the Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) network. This new section of the Outdoor News Bulletin will provide readers with regular updates on LCC efforts involving WMI.