TOPEKA — Entrepreneur and conservationist Wayne Walker says saving the lesser prairie chicken in Kansas required a broader commitment to paying market rates to landowners dedicated to improving prairie habitat for vulnerable birds.

He said companies involved in energy production in regions favored by the prairie chicken often have good intentions in terms of addressing the need for biological diversity and concerns about climate change. But, he says, too many people are reluctant to pay the true cost of a landowner setting aside vast tracts for the benefit of the colorful, solitary prairie chicken.

Walker, owner of Common Ground Capital and CEO of LPC Conservation, said on the Kansas Reflector podcast that programs designed to help lesser prairie chickens tend to fail because they don’t pay farmers or ranchers enough to justify multigenerational changes in land use.

“You can’t continue to ask ranchers to be good conservationists for free. That’s basically what we’ve done so far and… that’s why we’ve lost so much grassland and this bird is in trouble,” Walker said.

“Our financial system is designed to make profits and conservation has always been excluded from that model,” he said. “Until a rancher can make a profit by conserving grasslands through prairie chicken or some other ecosystem service – just like he can make money by selling his wind rights or his solar rights or his mineral rights or its development rights – the situation is not going to improve.

In 2023, the US Fish and Wildlife Service caused controversy listed two distinct segments of the prairie chicken population under the Endangered Species Act due to habitat loss and fragmentation of grassland areas.

In the northern region, including western Kansas, southeastern Colorado, western Oklahoma, and the northeast Texas panhandle, the lesser prairie chicken has been listed as threatened. The southern range of the lesser prairie chicken in eastern New Mexico and the southwest Texas Panhandle has been listed as endangered due to the threat of extinction.

The decision by federal regulators angered members of Kansas’ congressional delegation, who denounced the listing as an overreach that was harmful to the state’s agricultural and energy sectors.

U.S. Rep. Tracey Mann, a Republican serving in the 1st District that includes much of the bird’s habitat in Kansas, said the listing amounts to a “proxy war against America’s agricultural and energy that are vital to our economy.

He said the federal government should stand aside from farmers, ranchers and landowners, whom he described as the “prime defenders of the environment.”

More than a club

Years of fighting between energy companies, environmentalists, elected officials and federal regulators led to the listing and fueled the inevitable wave of lawsuits.

Mike Smith, who works on LPC conservation projects in five states, said the prairie chicken population has fallen to perhaps 25,000. In some years, due to good rainfall, there may be a temporary increase in population. Drought has the opposite impact on birds.

The long-term spiral, despite a mix of voluntary programs and initiatives, warrants intervention under the federal Endangered Species Act, Smith said.

He said federal government mandates could spark greater environmental awareness of bird habitat deterioration and raise the profile of approaches rooted in business principles.

“The Endangered Species Act provides a boost and, you know, keeps everyone honest, but outsourcing conservation work to the states and then having state rangers or state wildlife managers in the land sector have not worked,” Smith said. “They don’t know how to put the last of the best properties together to create … these easements, which is what Wayne (Walker) did in his conservation banking business.”

Walker said the collaboration could work if there were enough financial incentives for landowners to redirect land resources in a way that also benefits the bird.

“Old conservation models have done some good things, but overall we’re losing out, right? » said Walker. “It became clear to me…we had to bring some business acumen to it.”

It’s a business

Common Ground Capital works to identify landowners with properties with ecological and biological features that could be restored and preserved through a conservation banking system. Landowners enter into long-term protective land easements that serve the interests of prairie chickens in exchange for a prescribed revenue stream. Ideally, you would build strongholds for the kesser prairie chicken with 25,000 to 50,000 acres each, Walker said.

When diverse interests come together, companies with a large environmental footprint – energy companies, for example – buy conservation credits to position themselves as cleaner and greener. The wind and solar industries have turned more to conservation banks than oil and gas interests.

“We approach it like a developer would approach building a subdivision. You know, location, location. Where are the birds? Where are there breeders willing to talk to us about this arrangement? And then, of course, with the Fish and Wildlife Service, there are standards that we have to meet,” Walker said.

The bird’s listing as threatened and endangered is expected to provide a boost to conservation banks. Common Ground Capital, and companies like it, would benefit from bringing diverse interests together.

“I really don’t want to apologize for that. I mean, people have accused me of trying to get rich off the prairie chicken,” Walker said. “Look, if this is a get-rich-quick scheme, it’s the worst in history because we’ve been doing this for 12 years, and we’re not quite in the black yet.”