Addressing Encroachment with Cooperative Agreements and Conservation

Abstract

AbstractLand‐use planners have long understood the need for consolidated planning across political boundaries. Collaborative interaction between adjacent land managers predates the U.S. Constitution; however, tools necessary to support federal missions and natural resource conservation requirements across public‐private land mosaics are increasingly ineffective.The nation's modern regulatory system and resource‐constrained climate increasingly confounds this cooperation. This article describes and analyses a new tool that has been proven effective in joint land management. The tool is a cooperative agreement (CA) that was signed in 1995 by Fort Bragg, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), and the U.S. Army Environmental Center (AEC). The CA enables the cost‐sharing of the acquisition of conservation encumbrances in the vicinity of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Conservation encumbrances are defined as fee simple land purchases by TNC or the purchase of perpetuity deed restrictions by TNC. All acquisitions are done with willing sellers and based upon fair market values of the acquired assets. All acquisitions have provisions for low‐impact soldier access to the conserved lands. This article details the development and amendments of the CA and specifies benefits to all parties.Ultimate ownership, land‐use plans, and long‐term management responsibilities will be discussed. This article assesses lessons learned in a long‐term effort at collaborative land management at which the Army's training mission was (and is) in jeopardy. Also, a mechanism to assess return on investment at other installations that are considering this approach is offered. While most bioregional planning is by nature highly crafted to meet specific local requirements, lessons learned from this project are instructive. In this case, both encroachment by incompatible development in the vicinity of a military installation and training restrictions due to environmental compliance are being reduced. Under limited circumstances, this tool can provide long‐term security of military missions and declining natural resources. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.