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K. Gregg Elliott

Private landowners seeking the best information on land conservation - done in the most profitable way - can turn to the only national website designed with them in mind.

The Private Landowner Network (PLN) and a number of other websites are the work of Resources First Foundation (RFF), a 501-c-3 nonprofit guided by the principle that “any comprehensive conservation strategy must address the human component.” RFF recognizes private landowners as land stewards, astute business people, and the caretakers of America’s future natural resources.

The Truth About Land Use in the USA

The Resources First focus on private lands is driven by facts. Their website points out that the rate of loss of farm, ranch and forest lands has more than doubled in recent decades. The rate of loss rose from 1.4 million acres/year in the 1980s to 3.2 million acres/year in the 1990s. The organization asserts that “keeping farm and ranch land productive is the only economically viable avenue to avoid sensitive land fragmentation, development and sprawl.”

The founder and executive director of RFF is Amos Eno, whose 35 years of natural resource management and policy experience led to the realization that a working landscape is far preferable to a paved one. In working with private landowners, he recognized the need for a source of neutral, nonpartisan information for farmers and ranchers to make use of the bewildering array of federal, state, and private programs aimed at them.

In many cases today, family farmers and ranchers can no longer afford to pass their landed estate to their children without tax planning and even conservation easements. PLN values these individuals as some of the most knowledgeable and practical land managers around. There are only about 4.7 million land owners of any size in the U.S. They husband 61% of the nation’s lands (71% of the continental US), 70% of America’s wetlands and 75% of the country’s endangered species habitats. PLN was designed for them.

Tools and Services for Landowners

The PLN website is actually a series of directories, news services and tools, developed with the landowner in mind. The Conservation Yellowpages and the Conservation Grant & Assistance Programs are searchable by state, zip code, and resource type and provide access to over 15,000 technical experts, service providers, and funding programs nationwide.

The Tax Planning and Estate Management Program helps users find the resources and experts who can “keep your land in the family.” The Land and Energy Conservation Toolbox provides links to an array of applications that can help landowners save money, plan for conservation, and diversify their income (such as through farm stays), among other things.

The PLN Library provides an ever-expanding database of articles on topics of concern to landowners and the professionals who serve them - everything from do-it-yourself household water audits to how-to’s on amendments to perpetual easements. The articles are written by experts in their field, some of which have been written specifically for PLN. The Conservation Exchange carries news stories and announcements of interest (such as grant opportunities and Congressional actions) that are updated continuously.

PLN is a Model for Success

Since its founding in 2003, public use of PLN has only increased. By 2005, the site surpassed 20,000 page views. In the years since, use has roughly doubled each year. In 2009, PLN logged more than 1.3 million page views, and use is still growing. Visitors to the site not only find useful information, but can sign up for email newsletters, submit articles to PLN, and list themselves in the site’s expert databases.

The success of the site has spawned a host of spinoffs, including the Conservation Tax Center and Cooperative Conservation America, dedicated to cataloguing stewardship success stories (searchable, as always, by state or zip code). In addition, RFF has been contracted to replicate the PLN model on a regional basis. The results include sites devoted to Katrina Reforestation, Northern California, Houston, the state of Maine, and a number of others in development.

Amos Eno says the Resources First Foundation goal is to “empower private land owners, thereby encouraging their stewardship of natural resources, their use of green energy, and their entrepreneurial efforts for sustainability.” Private Landowner Network represents a new type of private public model for conservation, assisting landowners in taking advantage of public and philanthropic incentives for conservation and innovation. Yet with all these programs at their disposal, perhaps the best source of inspiration for private land stewards remains the beauty of the earth that surrounds them.

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Contact:
Laura Dover
207-221-2753
lmass@resourcesfirstfoundation.org