On January 7, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced a new initiative through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to conserve working lands and protect wildlife habitat in the headwaters of the Florida Everglades. The proposal would create a new national wildlife refuge and conservation area of approximately 150,000 acres of important environmental and cultural landscapes in the Kissimmee River Valley south of Orlando. The Department held up the proposal as a new vision in conservation, but the concept also has been gaining traction in other regions of the country in recent years, reports the Wildlife Management Institute.

The new Everglades proposal will protect important habitat for 88 federal- and state- listed species, including the Florida panther, Florida black bear, whooping crane, Everglade snail kite and the Eastern indigo snake. It will also link to approximately 690,000 acres of lands already protected by partners in the Greater Everglades. Two-thirds of the acreage within the conservation area could be protected through voluntary conservation easements on agricultural land, and the remainder could be protected through purchase. The proposal will go through a public-input process before a final recommendation is produced at the end of the year.

"This is an important first step aimed at preserving and protecting thousands of acres vital to the Everglades," said U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, who joined Secretary Salazar in the announcement. "Projects like this will ensure future generations will be able to benefit from and enjoy the River of Grass."

The FWS has been working collaboratively with private landowners, conservation groups and federal, tribal, state and local agencies to develop the vision for the area. By focusing on a broad area, with the intention of providing permanent conservation easements on private lands, the plan is receiving positive feedback from the ranching community.

?"We have been working with various easement programs since 1990," said Cary Lightsey of the Lightsey Cattle Company. "They all have been win-win situations and we have never looked back. It makes us feel good that we are providing green space and wildlife habitat for future generations. I appreciate this proposal. I don't see my grandchildren coming back and questioning why we preserved the landscape."?

Secretary Salazar held up the Everglades Headwaters as a "model for our 21st century approach to land conservation that is science-based, partner-driven, and takes into account working landscapes and entire ecosystems." However, the vision of conservation areas working with easements as well as acquisitions began in the 1990s in Montana's Blackfoot Valley, then quietly again in 2005, with the effort to protect the Rocky Mountain Front in Montana. That program has been so successful with the local ranching community and in protecting this unique ecosystem that, in early 2010, the FWS reached out to the community for input in expanding the boundary of the conservation area for potential easements on 295,000 acres.

In addition, a similar proposal to create a conservation area in the prairie pothole region is being developed in the upper Midwest, with public meetings held in mid-December and a comment period that just ended. The proposed Dakota Grassland Conservation Area would use conservation easements across the project area landscape to protect 240,000 acres of wetland and 1.7 million acres of grassland habitat from being converted to other uses. The new designation as a conservation area would allow the use of Land and Water Conservation Fund dollars for easements in the area. (jas)