CONSERVATION: Preserving Nevada's `great places'

Environmental conservation in a state where more than 85 percent of land is controlled by the federal government may seem somewhat premature, however, long-term planning and business-friendly environmental legislation provides a "tremendous opportunity" for Nevada to maintain growth while preserving its distinctive open lands and endemic species, according to Ame Hellman, state director for The Nature Conservancy. The most valuable lands to preserve, she said, are often right next door to human activity.

"People say `Nevada? There's tons of open land in Nevada.' What you'll see though is that the settlers and the pioneers picked the best places and that's where the growth took place," Hellman said.

As one of the first major conservation organizations, The Nature Conservancy has more than a 50-year history of protecting threatened ecosystems throughout the United States. Part real estate management company and part environmental advocacy group, the organization uses land and water rights purchases, as well as a bit of diplomacy, to protect what it calls "the last great places."

"The things I love about The Nature Conservancy are that we're nonconfrontational, we're flexible, and we're focused on building partnership," Hellman said.

Rob Scanland, director of protection for the organization, said Nevada offers plenty of opportunity for conservation due to its small population concentrated in two areas and surprisingly high biodiversity.

"There are some advantages in that so much of the state is undeveloped. It's one of the most urbanized states in the union with most of the population concentrated around Las Vegas and Reno," Scanland said.

The Nature Conservancy has been active in the state since the early 1980s. Since then, its real estate portfolio has grown tremendously. Interests include land holdings, water rights and easements on properties in every corner of the state, including Ash Meadows; the Muddy, Carson and Truckee rivers; Oasis Valley; and areas near small cities such as Searchlight, Fallon and Ely.

Because of their focus on real estate, the organization's purchases sometimes sound like historical preservation, such as the Ash Meadows Ranch, which happens to be home to the Devil's Hole pupfish, a species found only in Nevada. The ranch was purchased in the late 1980s.

Despite their vast holdings, the organization is relatively small: 10 staffers in its Reno office and five in its Las Vegas office.

Growth patterns such as those in Nevada fit perfectly with the strategy of The Nature Conservancy, which holds interests in rural communities, but generally avoids areas near major cities.

"We want to protect intact ecosystems, and you can't do that in the Las Vegas Valley," Hellman said. "Once you get out of the Las Vegas Valley, you start running into a lot of public land, and that's where we can find intact ecosystems."

Instead, the emphasis is on preserving areas in sparsely settled areas -- away from big cities but generally near human habitation. Far from finding resistance in these small-town pockets, Hellman said many of them, including Moapa and Beatty, have been quite receptive and willing to sell land and land rights -- so long as it doesn't interfere with their ability to make a living.

Over the years, the organization has used several creative means to accomplish its environmental mission by working with land owners at a local level.

"Our traditional tool in the past has been land purchases from willing sellers," Hellman said. "In the next 50 years, we will probably look into a new set of strategies and bigger goals."

The reason for reconsidering its strategy is that there is simply a lot of land they wish to acquire and relatively modest resources for which to purchase it. Whereas other states have land trusts, usually local funds meant to protect land of local interest, almost none exist in Nevada.

As any developer can attest, purchasing land, even cheap land, requires a lot of money. A nonprofit seeking to protect a large area needs to consider creative financing.

"We need to look at what's going to get us the most for our dollar," Hellman said. "Some of the other potential tools are conservation easements, where you purchase a conservation easement on someone's land and they can still use it for agriculture while allowing us to accomplish our goals. That, and management agreements allow us to work with people, which is important to us."

Other ways of stretching their funds are to purchase only the water rights or future options on land.

In Nevada, the trend is toward conservation easements, which allow agricultural activity to continue and species to be protected on the same land at the same time. Selling the idea to wary ranching communities that were once home to the Sagebrush Rebellion was difficult years ago, but with a few established throughout the state, "Now they're a favorite of the ranching community," Hellman said.

"There's a great concern in many communities that too much land goes into public (ownership), and especially federal (ownership). This is a way to achieve private ownership while having this protection to achieve conservation.

"Public land is a good and a bad thing. From a conservation perspective, we need to come up with solutions that serve multiple purposes."

In Amargosa, not only did environmental stewardship not interfere with business, it actually helped. Keeping the Amargosa toad from being listed as endangered kept federal regulations at bay, something residents of the city were happy to see.

"A lot of people came together to protect that toad., because if it had been listed, everyone would have been mad," Hellman said, pointing out that the community feared federal intervention under the Endangered Species Act.

Southern Nevada caught a similar break. More than a decade ago, the desert tortoise came precariously close to becoming endangered, and therefore a liability to development. With support from agencies such as The Nature Conservancy, the county enacted a plan paid by development fees to remove tortoises discovered in the valley and place them in remote habitats.

"We try to work with local folks on local projects," Hellman said. "We're always trying to seek a balance between good economic land use and good environmental management."

One such habitat is the Walking Box Ranch in Searchlight, near the Arizona and California border. Once owned by Las Vegas pioneer Rex Bell and actress Clara Bow, the ranch became part of a haven for tortoises seven years ago when The Nature Conservancy purchased the grazing rights to 400,000 acres adjacent to the ranch and retired them. An easement which the organization currently is acquiring would preserve the 120-acre site of the Big Giant Ranch adjacent to the land.

The county plan to protect the tortoise was so effective, it was later expanded to 69 other species, and renamed the Clark County Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan.

Similar easements were purchased at the Parker and Torrance ranches to protect the Amargosa toad. Usually, though, the organization buys the whole property.

"We're amazed that in Nevada we haven't used this tool more often," Hellman said.

Scanland said preventive measures have become common in Southern Nevada, citing the federal Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act as another example of planning for environmental protection while keeping growth chugging along.

"The SNPLMA is a tremendous opportunity for the state. It's unique in the United States. It has in the past and will in the future provide a legacy of balance between development and conservation," Scanland said.

The main provision of the SNPLMA is to sell land within the Las Vegas Valley and use the proceeds to purchase environmentally sensitive land throughout the state. The goals are similar to those of The Nature Conservancy, but there are somewhat different priorities between the Bureau of Land Management, which administers the federal law, and the private organization.

"We recommend sites for acquisition," Scanland said. "What we like to see as an organization is to move our science goals forward. We want to see what we consider the most crucial sites purchased. We have suggested several properties (for the BLM to purchase) that we consider important."

Sites they consider important are: 1. the Truckee River corridor, 2. the Carson River corridor, 3. the Amargosa River system, 4. the Muddy River corridor, and 5. the Eastern Nevada Landscape Restoration Coalition, which is centered on threats to the Steptoe Valley in White Pine County.

The organization could gain an ally in accomplishing what it considers its crucial goals in Nevada through an initative before state voters. The main focus of the nonprofit in 2002 has been Question 1 on the November ballot.

The question asks if the state should issue as much as $200 million in bonds to fund projects such as state parks, the Las Vegas Springs Preserve on Valley View Boulevard, the Desert Wetlands park in the southeastern valley, a new state history museum, wildlife habitats, restoration along the Truckee River, and nonspecified open spaces and recreational lands, such as recreational trails.

It is the first conservation initiative in Nevada since 1990, when Question 5 passed, and the second ever. Funds from the previous issue, $47 million, are spent.

"There continues to be pressure for development in Las Vegas, and that's not always a bad thing, but it needs to be balanced with the community's future needs for preservation of open lands," Scanland said.

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