This innovative program will facilitate and encourage preservation and enhancement of land resources across the County for agriculture, natural resources, wildlife habitat and open space, through easements, acquisition and other short and long term and permanent tools. Partners include landowners, non-profit organizations, government agencies and others. Beneficiaries will be the landowners, the public and a healthy working landscape which includes the protection and enhancement of watersheds and water quality. This is not a trust, but rather a facilitation service that matches and leverages existing programs, agencies, organizations and willing landowners. It will also attempt to develop innovative tools to accelerate voluntary land conservation and enhancement .
Goals include, but are not limited to protecting a wide range of agriculture, natural resource and open space values throughout Alameda County that will benefit landowners, the public and a healthy workinglandscape (natural resources, agriculture and open space).
The County of Alameda's General Plan encourages the County to utilize land conservation policies and funds to achieve these goals for land conservation and stewardship. There is no County land trust, and no land trust that operates throughout the County. There is the Tri-Valley Conservancy and there are
numerous regional, state and national land trusts that have some interest in Alameda County and that can hold easements and provide transaction assistance. There are numerous available funds for land acquisition, including mitigation funds. The missing link is a facilitator that has a trusted relationship
with private landowners so as to educate private landowners for easements and to match their interests and needs with trusts and mitigation needs.
In the stewardship area, the Natural Resources Conservation Service' funding allocation is woefully inadquate to provide project cost-share funds for the number of private and public resource projects for which there are applications. In addition, other landowners may not know of NRCS or know that they may not be funded, and, therefore do not apply. For example, there are about 600 stock ponds in the County that are deteriorating, and 20 landowners have applied, and there is NRCS funding in 2006 for 6 ponds. There is need to liaison with private and public developers and with grantors to leverage NRCS projects with mitigation funds so that a regional conservation strategy can be realized. In addition, new landowner assurances and short and long term stewardship agreements need to development to provide additional incentives for conservation.
Stewardship, Land Conservation
Ecosystem Restoration,
Environmental and habitat protection and improvement,
Land use planning,
Water quality protection and improvement,
Watershed planning,
Wetlands enhancement and creation
