(a) The use of private land conservation tools should be done in a manner that minimizes the negative impact, long-term and short, on the individual signing the agreement, neighbouring beef producers, the beef industry, broader agriculture and rural communities
(b) Recognizing that landowners and funders both have their own desired outcomes, access and funding to a suite of tools is needed to accomplish the varied goals. These tools must include, but are not limited to,
(i) Annual or short-term payment for ecological goods and services, such as biodiversity indices, carbon and water purification
(ii) Transferable development credits
(iii) Term agreements and/or easements
(iv) Perpetual easements.
(c) The value of any agreement must clearly state the service being sold and must establish a value through cost-benefit metrics that includes long-term implications.
(d) To prevent government dollars from competing with local landowners, organizations and land trusts should never use government dollars, nor government-leveraged dollars, to purchase freehold, agricultural land.
Ensure government funding of incentives and BRM programs are not counter intuitive nor perversive to the conservation of native prairie.
(e) Increased transparency around funding and activities, approaches should be strategic to insure value for investment.
Options of stacking and aggregating funding should be enabled for producers to recognize cost of producing environmental benefits
(a) Landowners have the property right to sell an interest in their land, in whole or in
part, as they see fit.
(b) It is a property right for landowners to make stewardship decisions for their land, which may impact the level ecological goods and services. Any requirement to change necessitates compensation.
Comments and questions can be submitted to gm@skstockgrowers.com prior to the August 15th submission deadline.
