Engaging Agricultural Landowners in Fish Habitat Restoration: Pathways and Barriers

Keywords: human dimensions, private lands, habitat restoration, collaborative conservation, water geography
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

The conservation community has long recognized the critical role that agricultural landowners play in efforts to improve fish and wildlife habitat in order to recover threatened and endangered species. In many rural areas dominated by agricultural working landscapes, government agencies like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) struggle to gain the trust of ranchers and farmers, a prerequisite for successful federally funded habitat restoration projects, and coordinate habitat restoration across property lines. This project aims to identify barriers and pathways to fish habitat restoration on agricultural lands, drawing on theories associated with trust and collaborative conservation. Findings draw on interviews with practitioners across the U.S. who have had success engaging private landowners in habitat restoration; and a case study of landowner attitudes in the Upper Klamath Basin along the California-Oregon border in the western U.S. where two species of sucker fish with cultural importance to the Klamath Tribes are listed under the Endangered Species Act. The project aims to inform USFWS efforts to invest over $100m in restoration funds on private lands. In this presentation, we report on early results from this study, which have implications for efforts to improve working relationships between agricultural landowners and government agencies and implement a landscape scale approach to fish habitat restoration.