From the desk of Executive Director Meghan Brown:

June 2011

America’s Great Outdoors Initiative and the NCA

The Nevada Cattlemen’s Association (NCA) continues to work on issues that are important to you. There are many issues facing the state from potential closure of CABNR to national legislation and regulation. Every day our lobbyist and friends of the industry are working to protect your way of life and ensure that regulation and taxation does not inhibit commerce.

America’s Great Outdoors Initiative:
(Please find below comments and summaries from the America’s Great Outdoors webpage outlining the intent and goals of the Initiative. For more information regarding the Initiative or to read any of the documents please visit: http://americasgreatoutdoors.gov/)

 On February 15, 2011, President Barack Obama announced the America’s Great Outdoors Report, the Administration’s action plan under the America’s Great Outdoors initiative to achieve lasting conservation of the outdoor spaces that power our nation’s economy, shape our culture, and build our outdoor traditions.

The report released outlines ways in which the Federal Government will help empower local communities to accomplish their conservation and recreation priorities by recognizing that the best ideas come from outside of Washington. In the summer of 2010, senior Administration officials held 51 listening sessions across the country to gather input from Americans about the outdoor places and activities that they value most. These sessions drew more than 10,000 participants and more than 105,000 written comments, used to inform the America’s Great Outdoors Report, which when implemented will result in:

• Accessible parks or green spaces for our children.
• A new generation of great urban parks and community green spaces.
• Newly-restored river restorations and recreational “blueways” that power economic revitalization in communities.
• Stronger support for farmers, ranchers, and private landowners that help protect rural landscapes and provide access for recreation.
• The reinvestment of revenues from oil and gas extraction into the permanent protection of parks, open spaces, wildlife habitat, and access for recreational activities.
• A 21st century conservation ethic that builds on local ideas and solutions for environmental stewardship and connecting to our historic, cultural, and natural heritage.

In April, 2010, President Barack Obama signed a Presidential Memorandum establishing the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative to promote and support innovative community-level efforts to

America’s Great Outdoors builds on this nation’s long history of actions taken to conserve our natural heritage. What has resulted is a nationwide system of public lands—both large and small and including parks, wildlife refuges, forests, wilderness areas, scenic seashores, hiking trails, protected waters, and recreation areas. America’s homesteads, farms, and ranches have contributed to our heritage as well by preserving working landscapes, supplying food and fiber, protecting woods and watersheds, keeping air and water clean, and providing wildlife habitat. Historic and cultural sites have helped to educate us and to remind us of our roots. Together, our public, private, and tribal lands and waters embody one of our nation’s founding principles: the right of all Americans to enjoy and benefit from America’s natural treasures and the obligation to pass that heritage along to future generations.

Most profoundly, Americans have called for a new vision of conservation for the 21st century— one that builds on the traditions of the last century but also recognizes the challenges and changing circumstances of the new century.

NCA Summary:

The aspect of the America’s Great Outdoors that affects or concerns our ranching community is: Conserve Rural Working Farms, Ranches, and Forests Through Partnerships and Incentives.

The AGO listening sessions revealed a growing awareness among our citizenry that protecting the nation’s natural and cultural heritage requires an “all-lands” approach, i.e., working across all ownerships types across a landscape. Participants made it clear that farmers, ranchers, and forest owners are eager to help and are taking steps to protect America’s great outdoors, but they emphasized that conservation and resource stewardship must also make economic sense. Participants want AGO to foster, catalyze, and partner in community-level efforts on working lands to conserve and strategically connect the nation’s landscapes and watersheds. Citizens suggested that the federal government should expand tools available to landowners; conservation and historic preservation groups; and state, local, and tribal governments to conserve lands through voluntary, incentive-based approaches. One of the most frequent recommendations was to maintain the enhanced tax deduction for conservation easements.

GOAL A: Catalyze large-scale land conservation partnership projects through economic incentives and technical assistance.

AGO will support and catalyze landscape-scale conservation on working lands efforts by using The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and existing revenue sources and grant programs, and by improving coordination and alignment in use of technical and financial resources among federal, state, tribal, and local governments and other partners. Emphasis will be placed on using science-based tools and technology to leverage resources to achieve the maximum benefit to landscapes and resources from dollars spent.

Recommendation 7.1: Support collaborative landscape conservation through competitive processes, including increases in LWCF funding and other programs.

Recommendation 7.2: Support landscape partnerships by targeting existing federal dollars, policies, and other resources toward conservation of private and tribal working lands and coordinating expenditures, where appropriate, across federal agencies.

GOAL B: Significantly increase the pace of working farms, ranches, and forest lands conservation.

Recommendation 7.3: Extend the enhanced deductions for conservation easement donations beyond 2011.

GOAL C: Increase financial incentives for land stewardship for farmers, ranchers, forest landowners, and tribes.

Conservationists and landowners alike agree on the need to maintain traditional markets for food, fiber, and wood products from agriculture and forestry, and also to create new sources of revenue from working lands. Developing markets for environmental services and benefits provided by private lands will create new sources of income that reward landowners for stewardship and for keeping these working lands in agricultural and forestry uses.

Recommendation 7.4: Develop and expand new markets, including those for the environmental services provided by working lands, for local agricultural or sustainable forest products, sustainable energy, and others.

Recommendation 7.5: Support financial and other incentives to encourage access for hunting, fishing, hiking, recreation, and other outdoor activities on or across private working lands.

Recommendation 7.6: Promote tools such as safe harbor agreements that provide certainty to landowners who agree.

Current NCA President Ron Cerri, Current PLC President John Falen, and staff Meghan Brown participated in a stakeholder meeting with Director Abbey and representatives from the conservation, preservation, and wildlife community regarding the implementation of the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative. This meeting allowed the participants to explain how they felt they were part of the process and how the Initiative would affect, enhance, or inhibit their activities. NCA was able to speak on behalf of private land owners and current managers of our public lands. The attitude towards ranching and the continued activity of grazing was not negative and there was a recognition that family ranches have a place on the landscape and are critical to rural communities and are part of our public land state. Though, maybe not all points could be agreed upon, there are aspects of this Initiative that look to reward and incentivize activities that ranchers are currently implementing and utilizing on their operations, including wildlife habitat, water quality, and air quality.

The office and leadership of NCA will continually monitor and participate in this Initiative to ensure that the ranching community’s voice is heard and our ideas, concerns, and visions are part of the process.

This, along with other issues, are on the forefront of the Association’s priorities. Leadership is continually working on representing your views at the Nevada legislature, and as the session comes to a close and budgets are voted on we will ensure that the voices of Nevada Agriculture are heard.