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Environmental Management

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03-10-2022

Partnerships, Lawsuits, and Competing Accountabilities in CCAA Agreements

Author: Casey L. Taylor

Published in: Environmental Management | Issue 3/2023

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Abstract

Private lands are often critical for successful species conservation, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service has increasingly utilized voluntary Candidate Conservation Agreements with Assurances (CCAAs) as a strategy for promoting private land conservation. CCAAs, however, present a challenge where the FWS, with its history as a regulatory entity, must now engage landowners as conservation partners. There is a deep culture of distrust among landowners, who are often suspicious of engaging with the agency, making it necessary for the FWS to build trusting relationships. Furthermore, FWS decisions often face litigation in the courts, where they may be overturned. This creates a challenge for CCAAs, as the agency is pulled between landowner demands for greater flexibility and a court system that emphasizes rigid compliance to established rules and procedures. This study seeks to understand what factors influenced the flexibility of agency staff and officials as they navigate the process of negotiating CCAAs amidst these competing demands for accountability. Three cases of CCAA development are presented, each aiming to protect the habitat for the greater sage-grouse and ease the regulatory burden on ranching communities, should the grouse become a federally protected species. In addition to the well-documented need for trust-building and maintenance, the findings of the study highlight the importance of shared goals, the participation of trusted intermediary organizations, and as well as the meaningful support and investment of senior FWS leadership in exploring creative, innovative solutions.

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FWS staff reported that this resistance was due to the regulatory nature of the agreement—the permit holder had to have some regulatory authority over its enrollees. For this reason, the agency had not allowed conservation districts to hold permits in the past. However, due to variability in how conservation districts are established, the Harney conservation district was qualified to hold the permits. Additional resistance stemmed from a desire to be consistent across states in how CCAAs were managed.

Candidate Conservation Agreements (CCAs) are similar to the CCAA model, but differ in that they do not offer any assurances with regard to future regulation. CCAs have generally been used as one voluntary opportunity for ranchers with public grazing allotments, which could conceivably factor into future decisions of land management agencies.

Although agency discussions in all three states emphasized the localized nature of grouse population needs, the officials in Idaho were the only ones to interpret the CCAA rules as demanding sufficient action to maintain a specific population. This divergence in interpretation of the CCAA guidelines may have resulted from confusing language found in the policy at the time. The language in the policy was interpreted by some to indicate a higher conservation standard was required for a CCAA to be acceptable, and later, a new policy was issued to address this confusion. The new policy clarified that agreed-upon conservation actions would be acceptable as long as they were contributing to a “net conservation benefit” for the species or its habitat on the covered property (CCAA Issuance Criteria 2021).

Several Harney County participants pointed to the Comprehensive Conservation Plan for the nearby Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, which had been developed collaboratively a few years prior. A number of Steering Committee members had been involved in this effort and argued that the relationships that developed through that process paved the way for future collaboration in the area, including the development of the CCAA. Shortly following interviews in Harney County, armed extremists seized the Malheur Refuge headquarters in protest against the federal government, much to the distress of several who took pride in their collaborative reputation.

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Title: Partnerships, Lawsuits, and Competing Accountabilities in CCAA Agreements
Author: Casey L. Taylor
Publication date: 03-10-2022
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Environmental Management / Issue 3/2023
Print ISSN: 0364-152X
Electronic ISSN: 1432-1009
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-022-01722-8

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