Advocates of imperiled lesser prairie chicken say market incentives key to expanding habitat
The federal government's decision to list the lesser prairie chicken as endangered or threatened could inspire interest in a system of conservation banking that pays landowners a market rate for protecting bird habitat. ()
TOPEKA — Entrepreneur and conservationist Wayne Walker says the business of saving the lesser prairie chicken in Kansas required wider commitment to paying market rates to landowners dedicated to improving grassland habitat for the vulnerable birds.
He said companies involved in energy production within regions favored by the prairie chicken often had good intentions in terms of addressing the need for biological diversity and addressing climate change concerns. But, he said, too many balked at paying the true cost of a landowner setting aside large tracts for benefit of the colorful, reclusive prairie chicken.
Walker, owner of Common Ground Capital and CEO of LPC Conservation, said on Kansas Reflector's podcast that programs designed to aid the lesser prairie chicken tended to fall short because they didn't pay farmers or ranchers enough to justify multigenerational shifts in land use.
"You can't keep asking the ranchers to be good conservationists for free. That's essentially what we've done to date and ... is why we have lost so much prairie and this bird's in trouble," Walker said.
"Our financial system is designed to make a profit and conservation historically has been kept out of that model," he said. "Until a rancher can make a profit conserving prairie because of the prairie chicken or some other ecosystem service — just like he can make money selling his wind rights or his solar rights or his mineral rights or his development rights — it's not going to turn around."
In 2023, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service controversially listed two distinct population segments of the lesser prairie chicken under the Endangered Species Act due to habitat loss and fragmentation of grassland areas.
In the northern region, including western Kansas, southeastern Colorado, western Oklahoma and the northeast Texas panhandle, the lesser prairie-chicken was listed as threatened. The southern range of the lesser prairie-chicken in eastern New Mexico and the southwest Texas panhandle was listed as endangered due to the threat of extinction.
The decision of federal regulators enraged members of the Kansas congressional delegation who denounced the listing as an overreach damaging to the state's agriculture and energy sectors.
U.S. Rep. Tracey Mann, a Republican serving the 1st District that includes much of the bird's habitat in Kansas, said the listing amounted to a "proxy war on American agriculture and energy sectors that are vital to our economy."
He said the federal government should get out of the way of farmers, ranchers and landowners, who he described as the "original conservationists."
More than a cudgel
Years of brawling among energy companies, environmentalists, elected officials and federal regulators led to the listing and fueled the inevitable flurry of lawsuits.
Mike Smith, who works with LPC Conservation projects in five states, said the population of lesser prairie chicken had dropped to perhaps 25,000. In certain years, due to good rainfall, there might be a temporary surge in the population. Drought has the opposite impact on the birds.
The long-term spiral, despite a hodgepodge of voluntary programs and initiatives, justified intervention with the federal Endangered Species Act, Smith said.
He said mandates from the federal government could prompt greater environmental awareness to deterioration of bird habitat and raise the profile of approaches anchored to business principles.
"The Endangered Species Act provides a cudgel, and, you know, keeps everybody honest, but the outsourcing of conservation work to the states and then having state rangers or state wildlife managers in the land business has not worked," Smith said. "They don't know how to cobble together the last of the best properties in order to make ... these easements, which is what Wayne (Walker) has done in his conservation banking business."
Walker said collaboration could work if there was sufficient financial incentive for property owners to redirect land resources in a way that also benefitted the bird.
"The old conservation models have done some good things, but overall we're losing, right?" Walker said. "It just became clear to me ... we had to bring some business acumen to it."
It's a business
Common Ground Capital works to identify landowners with property that possessed ecological and biological features that could be restored and preserved through a system of conservation banking. Property owners enter into long term protective land easements that serve interests of prairie chickens in exchange for a prescribed revenue stream. It would be ideal to build strongholds for the kesser prairie chicken with 25,000 to 50,000 acres each, Walker said.
When the varied interests come together, companies with a large imprint on the environment — energy companies, for example — purchase conservation credits to position themselves as more clean and green. Wind and solar industries have taken to conservation banking more than oil and gas interests.
"We approach it like a developer would approach building a housing development. You know, location, location. Where are the birds? Where are there ranchers there that are willing to talk to us about this arrangement. And then, of course, with the Fish and Wildlife Service, there are standards we have to meet," Walker said.
Listing of the bird as threatened and endangered ought to build momentum for conservation banking. Common Ground Capital, and companies like it, would profit by bringing the diverse interests together.
"I really don't want to be apologizing for that. I mean, people have accused me of trying to get rich off the prairie chicken," Walker said. "Look, if it's a get-rich-quick scheme, it is the worst one in history because we do this for 12 years, and we still aren't quite in the black yet."
