By
Shawn Wade
The next landowner outreach and
information meeting for the Stakeholders' Conservation Strategy for the Lesser
Prairie Chicken and the LEPC Habitat Exchange Program has been scheduled
Thursday, January 23, in Morton, Texas.
The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. CDT
at the Cochran County Activity Center in Morton. A meal will be provided to
attendees. RSVPs are appreciated to help plan for the meal; please contact
Shawn Wade at PCG at (806) 778-6256.
Non-governmental stakeholder groups
that encompass agriculture, the oil and gas industry, and the environmental
community have come together to develop the Stakeholders’ Conservation Strategy
for the Lesser Prairie Chicken.
The Stakeholder Conservation
Strategy and the LEPC Habitat Exchange are independent efforts and are not
affiliated with any other LEPC conservation programs, including the Interstate
Working Group’s LEPC Range-Wide Conservation Plan.
The primary purpose of Stakeholders'
Conservation Strategy for the Lesser Prairie Chicken is to provide a
market-based response to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services proposed listing
of the Lesser Prairie Chicken as a "Threatened" species under the
Endangered Species Act.
Once approved by the USFWS, the
Stakeholder Conservation Strategy will work to translate interest in continued
energy production inside the LEPC range, and the resulting habitat mitigation
need, into opportunities for voluntary landowner participation through the sale
of mitigation credits, while also satisfying the desires of the USFWS and
environmental community to benefit the species via voluntary
conservation.
Successful implementation of the
Stakeholders' Conservation Strategy for the Lesser Prairie Chicken will provide
beneficial habitat preservation and restoration for the species through the
creation of a market-based mechanism that provides opportunities for private
landowners to develop alternative income streams in exchange for the
implementation of habitat conservation and management practices that benefit
the species and facilitate the continuation of valuable oil and gas activity
within the LEPC range.
Agriculture groups involved with the
effort include Plains Cotton Growers, the Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas Farm
Bureaus and many other Ag groups representing landowners within the currently
identified LEPC range.
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| Lesser Prairie Chicken, USDA Forest Service image |
