LANDOWNER

Roadmap to the Next Era of Conservation

Executive Summary

→ Partnerships and Locally led Conservation:

Top-down efforts often remove input and opportunities from the communities most directly affected by policy decisions. Locally led, collaborative efforts with impacted stakeholders are broadly supported. Landowners need federal agencies to partner with non-federal entities, including states and landowner/producer organizations to prioritize community-based decision-making.

Western landowners advocate for a cultural shift toward partnership and trust-building, rather than imposing excessive regulatory burdens on the working lands community. Programs such as the Good Neighbor Authority, Stewardship Agreements, the USDA/Wyoming Big Game Migration Initiative, and the Regional Conservation Partnership Program provide strong models for expansion. Institutionalize locally led, collaborative decision-making and partnerships by establishing clear pathways and defined processes for agency staff and landowners.

→ Public Land Grazing:

• Flexibility with Assurances: Greater flexibility is needed in grazing management, permitting, and NEPA processes so managers and permittees can respond quickly to changing conditions such as drought, wildfire, or resource needs. The rigidity of existing plans and the prescriptive nature of federal programs often prevent managers and producers from responding quickly to variations in western landscapes. Flexibility with assurances is the number one request voiced by livestock producers operating on public lands. The BLM is demonstrating successful adaptive management through Outcome-Based Grazing pilots, and we encourage agencies to build upon this framework by clarifying existing authorities. Permit frameworks should incorporate flexibility to allow adaptive management that supports long-term rangeland health. We also support expanded categorical exclusions for range improvements (wildlife friendly fences, water developments, etc.) and the use of programmatic EAs over multiple allotments to promote management flexibility as much as possible.
• Monitoring, Data, and Science-Based Decisions: One of the biggest challenges in grazing permit decisions is the lack of pertinent, timely, and available information on range health, especially in relation to livestock grazing and other drivers of range conditions. Cooperative monitoring with landowners, universities, and conservation districts is a proven model to fill agency capacity gaps and strengthen informed decisions. Clarifying and expanding cooperative monitoring agreements through guidance, manuals, funding support and rulemaking is needed across federal agencies. Agencies must rely on replicable, robust monitoring data to inform administrative actions.

→ Federal Agency Capacity, Culture, and Regulatory Burdens:

Federal agencies cannot fulfill their missions without long-term, skilled, local staff. Yet cumbersome hiring processes, frequent turnover, and uncompetitive compensation make it difficult to attract and retain qualified candidates—especially those with local expertise critical to land stewardship. These challenges create instability for communities and erode trust between agencies and stakeholders. At the same time, an agency culture shaped by fear of litigation and heavy bureaucracy discourages innovation and delays on-the-ground conservation. Streamlining hiring processes, offering competitive compensation, creating incentives for staff to remain in place, and prioritizing local hires will help stabilize capacity concerns. Reduce regulatory burdens by streamlining NEPA through investment in NEPA focused staff, programmatic EAs, and other means.

→ Public land sales and transfers:

Western landowners generally oppose large-scale public land sales, particularly with mandated minimum acreage targets. Instead, they favor improvements to federal lands management and reforms of the federal land disposal processes, authorized by laws such as FLPMA, the Federal Land Exchange Facilitation Act, and others. Focus efforts on improving public lands management and outcomes. Reform federal land disposal processes to make them more expedited and target disposals and land exchanges that better serve both landowners and the public interest.

→ The Endangered Species Act (ESA):

The ESA is important in preventing the extinction of imperiled wildlife species, but its implementation can unintentionally penalize landowners who provide essential habitat. Policy should recognize the critical role of working lands and promote collaborative, incentive-based approaches—such as habitat leasing paired with regulatory assurances—to support stewardship. Prioritize reducing regulatory barriers and disincentives to ease economic burdens on landowners while improving outcomes for both wildlife and people.

→ Water Management:

Now more than ever, watersheds require continued investment and meaningful engagement with producers to address water shortages in the West. Landowners must have a strong understanding of water rights in order to advance and participate in water-sharing programs. States need to take a stronger role in supporting local water collaboratives, providing capacity and financial support to make them effective, and federal funding mechanisms should support the states long-term in accomplishing these goals. Support stronger state and federal investments in water literacy and landowner engagement in water policy decisions so that the working lands community can advance opportunities for collaborative water management. Investments in research, mapping, and trusted programs such as RCPP, EQIP, and WaterSMART are needed to advance drought resiliency.

→ Farm Bill Conservation Title Programs:

Current Farm Bill programs disproportionately favor row crops over western farms and rangeland operations, and the West holds limited leadership roles on congressional Farm Bill committees. Yet landowners in the West depend on these programs to steward habitat and maintain the viability of their operations. Make programs better fit the west and focus fairer funding of conservation title programs (EQIP, CSP, Grassland CRP, RCPP, and ACEP-ALE). Improve the delivery and implementation of programs including the application, negotiation, reporting and payment process. Finally, we support more representation from Western leaders in Farm Bill and Agriculture committees.

→ Funding Models for Working lands and Wildlife:

The working lands community needs meaningful economic drivers for conservation stewardship. We encourage broader public participation in funding wildlife conservation, including options for recreation users, consumers, and private industry to contribute directly to stewardship efforts on private lands. Funding mechanisms that pool contributions from multiple sources, such as conservation trust funds, could help provide reliable revenue streams for landowners stewarding wildlife habitat. Incentivizing market-based conservation by advancing tools like ecosystem service markets, agricultural markets, agritourism and wildlife-related income also creates reliable revenue streams for working lands.