Ducks Unlimited Podcast

Jered Hensen: Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I'm Dr. Jared Henson, and I'm going to be your host today for our regular audience out there. I may be a new voice and I'm really happy to be joining the team. I am about a year in here at Ducks Unlimited. I'm a project manager. and the ecosystem services and sustainability area. So I work with an amazing team that helps quantify all the other benefits of our work aside from the waterfowl benefits and use that data and that information to help leverage to find new funding sources to help move our mission forward. I'm really, really happy to be joining the podcast team and bring content about things like sustainability, our conservation programs, the other non-waterfowl things to the podcast and hopefully some other fun stuff as well. So today I want to start by introducing our two amazing guests. So we have Kate Hackett and Josh Green over here, and they are both from our lands team. And we want to talk a little bit about the way that Ducks Unlimited is able to ensure that their conservation work lasts. And so with that, I would love to turn it over to Kate and Josh and let y'all introduce yourselves. Please tell us a little bit and tell the audience a little bit about what brought you here, kind of your background and what you do for Ducks Unlimited. So Kate, take it away.

Kate Hackett: All right. Well, thanks for having me, Jared. This is great to join you and happy to share with everyone some more information about land protection at Ducks Unlimited. I am the managing director of lands in Memphis. I also have been at Ducks Unlimited for about a year, but have been in the business for a long time. 25 or 30 years or maybe too many that I'm willing to admit at this point. And I came to Ducks Unlimited because it is uniquely positioned in the conservation field to envision conservation projects, implement conservation projects, and ensure permanent land protection. And we're very unique. in the conservation field. So that's what brought me to the organization. And my role here is to really look across the whole organization and ensure that we are protecting the most important waterfowl habitat and looking at some of our other conservation benefits and how we raise funds for that, ensuring that we're protecting important landscapes everywhere and making sure that lasts forever, is durable.

Jered Hensen: Awesome. Thank you, Kate. Josh?

John Green: Hey, I'm Josh Green. I'm a director of land protection here at Ducks Unlimited. I work with Kate out of our national office kind of helping to support all of the different land protection projects that we have going on. I've been at DU for about five years now, which this is one of the first instances where I may have been the longest tenured DU person in a room. But you are new to HQ. But I am new to this role. I'm working with Kate and her team at the national office. I've been in this position for a few months, but before that I worked as a lands coordinator for our southern regional office just outside of Jackson, Mississippi. helping to deliver some of those conservation easement, fee title, and other land protection projects that we're going to dive into on this on this podcast, I hope. And before coming to DU, I was a commercial real estate attorney, did a little bit of work in Jackson, Mississippi, and some in New Orleans, Louisiana. And but during that time, I had sort of caught the conservation bug, as it were, and had some experience working at prior land trusts and This opportunity to come to a team like the one at DU was something I couldn't turn down and it's been easily the best decision I've ever made from a career standpoint.

Jered Hensen: Well, awesome. We are so happy for y'all to both be here. I also kind of wanted to talk a little bit about kind of that diverse background you just said because protecting these lands is a lot. It's complicated. It needs legal expertise. It needs relationships with landowners and other partners, right? federal state partners as well and so I think that's really impressive that y'all have that ability and your team has that ability to reach out and cross all those spaces to actually get this work done. So can y'all give me a little background in history on just land protection maybe in North America just a little bit just kind of. Just for conservation. So like early on when DU was founded in like, you know, the late 1930s, if they wanted to ensure that their work lasted, that work up in the prairies, it lasted, how were they able to kind of get that to stick?

John Green: The many states that we work in have limits around the length of certain agreements. So to an extent, you've always been able to achieve some lasting effect for a period of time, but not really forever, unless you just bought the property. And you being a group like Ducks Unlimited, another conservation organization, a state or federal agency who is in the business of acquiring and holding and preserving land in the long term. But that was kind of the only tool in the toolbox if your objective was to make something permanent. And for many decades in Ducks Unlimited's history, Ducks Unlimited didn't really do much in terms of land purchases, at least not in the United States. Middle part of the century, I say this century, we're in a different century now, middle part of the 20th century, you started to see this new tool, conservation easements. I don't know exactly when, and maybe, Kate, you have this information, or Jared, but those instruments allowed a private landowner to retain ownership of their property, but then gave a third-party entity, a conservation organization, a federal agency, I think one that many people, many listeners may be familiar with is the NRCS, through their WRE programs. but gave some third party the right to prevent certain activities from occurring on that property that could harm the conservation values in the long run. And those easements had a term length of forever. They were perpetual. Great theory. Not sure how much of an uptake there was. Then Congress created some potentially lucrative tax exemptions, not exemptions, but some tax benefits for people who wanted to do this. But many conservation organizations are often cash strapped and don't really have the money to purchase these conservation easements. But Congress created the ability for certain landowners who wanted to donate these easements to then receive a tax deduction for having done so. And I want to say those regulations, was it the 70s or 80s? 80s. It was the 80s? Yeah. Those, after that, you saw another uptick in the amount of donated easements. Then in sort of early 2000s, Congress made those deductions a little bit better, raised sort of the cap that landowners were able to deduct after donating easements. So, you saw yet another uptick Now, you're also seeing historic levels of state and federal funding going into conservation efforts, including the purchase of conservation easements. You're seeing even more of an uptick. And so, as this support grows, you're starting to see this tool get more and more popular. And you can understand why, because it allows landowners to retain ownership of their property, continue enjoying it. Most of these landowners who do conservation easements, we talk about these financial benefits, but you don't even get to this point if they don't have some sort of conservation ethic, for the most part. They want to see this property preserved and they want to see it protected forever. This allows them to do that, gives them a way to frankly pay for having done so, and also allows them and their family, their heirs, to continue enjoying these properties for their recreational and conservation values.

Jered Hensen: Yeah, that's awesome. And I think some great point that you kind of lead into here is you're talking about state and federal groups that can kind of offer these conservation easements, but also there are other outside groups that can hold easements. And I think that brings in the idea of land trusts. Can y'all kind of define that a little bit and how that works and talk a little bit about what the use land trust is?

Kate Hackett: Sure, sure. So I want to comment also on something that Josh said and pick up on the value of conservation easements, not only in terms of protecting conservation resources and natural resources and the financial benefits, but I love a conservation easement because it is the business of forever. It is working with a landowner to identify and articulate the conservation legacy that they have and their interest in protecting land forever. And it's a back and forth, a discussion, a conversation that is then embodied in a contract that it's a conservation easement and that is recorded and goes on forever.

Jered Hensen: And that's impressive. Yeah. Forever is a long time.

Kate Hackett: Forever is a long time.

Jered Hensen: And it also sets it, you know, sets it up to for, we'll talk about this probably maybe a little, come back around to it in a little bit, but kind of the, the issues that may have come from, you know, families, you know, if things are passed down in families and, and kids may have a different idea than a parent or something like that, there's always those things. That's a way that the families can kind of, or someone can ensure that something stays intact, at least in that, that mindset.

Kate Hackett: And to that point, right, we're seeing the greatest intergenerational transfer of assets that we've ever had, including land assets. So it's really, really important time to capture this with conservation easements. But Jared, to your point about land trusts, as you mentioned, Ducks Unlimited didn't start out in the land conservation business. We were really focused on keeping water on the landscape. Correct. So now, fast forward, we have Wetlands America Trust and that is DU's subsidiary and our land trust arm of the organization. So when we protect land forever by buying it or by obtaining a conservation easement, it's actually Wetlands America Trust that holds it. And most people don't know that Wetlands America Trust is actually the third largest land trust in the United States. Wow.

Jered Hensen: Yeah. How many acres-ish?

Kate Hackett: Oh, boy. Yes. So we have protected or conserved or impacted almost 18 million acres since our founding. Not all of those we own now.

Jered Hensen: Right, we're not in the business of owning and keeping land for a long time from what I understand, right? Right. That would take a lot of effort. But try and turn it over to partners or to those that have conservation interests as well, right? Offload that property to state agencies, federal agencies, even some private

Kate Hackett: It's often the case that we are asked by a state or a federal agency to quickly step in on a conservation property that they are interested in but cannot act as fast as needed because perhaps the landowner needs to sell or the federal agency needs the funding to flow. So it's often the case that we will step in, protect a piece of property by buying it, and then convey it to a state or a federal agency partner. Our work with individuals is a little bit different than that. More often it's the case with individuals that we take conservation easements. And in that case, conservation easements, we do hold that conservation easement forever.

John Green: Right. And I think the conservation easement You asked about acres earlier. Obviously, conservation easements and sort of Wetlands America Trust's contribution to that overall 18 million acre figure is, I mean, it's one of many contributions, but I want to say that we're at about half a million acres held currently by Wetlands America Trust. And that's just conservation easements and maybe some fee title acquisitions in there as well. Correct.

Jered Hensen: Correct. Can you define fee title acquisitions?

John Green: So, fee title acquisitions is just buying and selling of land that most people are familiar with. When you bought your house, you bought it in fee. Gotcha.

Jered Hensen: Yeah, I just wanted to clarify for the audience out there or people like me who wanted a good quick explanation.

Kate Hackett: We deal a lot in real estate, so sometimes we slip into the terminology there.

Jered Hensen: Yeah, that's why you're on this side of the table and I'm over here as the host and just a biologist. Awesome. I think that's a great leverage point to talking about the DU Lands team. So more a little bit about just kind of how the Lands team is structured at DU and kind of what y'all do.

Kate Hackett: I'm gonna punt over to Josh because I think actually he's got a great perspective on the ground up all the way to headquarters since he has a lot of experience in the regional office and now is at headquarters and I'll chime in after that.

John Green: Thank you for that. vote of confidence. So even though we are the ones who get to be on this podcast, the land protection project projects themselves, they originate at the regional level. And so, you know, we talk about our lands team, our lands team, it consists of people who are dedicated 100% all the time to working on land protection projects. But it also involves people who were lands is not really their primary focus. It's merely a component of of their job duties. That includes Many of our biologists that are out in the field doing work, that includes managers of conservation programs, a variety of different people who are out there when they engage with private landowners, they are asked to communicate with them about their interest in a conservation easement or an interest in potentially selling their property to Ducks Unlimited if we decide that it would be a really good fit for maybe a state or federal partner. So, our lands team, it sort of starts at the regional level on the ground. It's people meeting with landowners, it's people building relationships with key partners who we may want to transfer some of these real estate assets to down the line. From there, it extends, and that's, we have four regions. Apologies for anyone out there who's listening who's very familiar with our regional breakdown, but we have the southern region, we have Great Lakes and Atlantic region, the prairies, and then we have the western region. And so, each of those regions have pretty unique and diverse breakdowns of what their lands teams look like. But at the end of the day, all of those people at the regional level are always looking for projects, always evaluating those projects, always trying to be strategic in the projects that they bring to the organization for approval. You know, we have focus areas at Ducks Unlimited, and so we want our teams to really be focusing their efforts within those high-priority areas, because we've decided, you know, it's a science-based organization. Working and protecting habitat and connecting habitat in these areas is the most effective way for us to achieve our mission, which is fill the skies with waterfowl now and forever. And so once those regional staff identify these lands projects, then they come up, they come up through an internal approval process. And then once they're approved, then they get in many respects turned over to our team here at headquarters with Kate and myself. We have I don't know if I should be naming names, but we have another Director of Land Protection, Caroline May, who's been here for a really long time and she's great to work with as well. We've got Alex McWhorter, who's another attorney. Caroline and Alex are both attorneys. We've got Nick Smith, ACE GIS specialist here at headquarters, among the many other crack GIS specialists at the regional level as well. And then a whole team of accountants and project coordinators. It's a big group that makes a land protection project click. and makes them go, and we do a lot of them. And so it's a heavy lift. I worry that I've probably left some other people out there, too, at headquarters. Have I missed anyone, Kate?

Kate Hackett: I would just add Jennifer Roy, who's the one who keeps us all on track.

Jered Hensen: Yes, the one who actually makes us all work. Keeping things going. Yeah, that's awesome. Kate, did you have anything else to add?

Kate Hackett: Yeah, I'll add that once projects come up to headquarters, We know the conservation value of the property and it's something that we want to move forward with. And then we start looking at, does the conservation easement have everything that it needs to have? And what is that going to look like? What's our cash flow so that we can make sure that we meet our commitments? And one unique part of the work that we do is we actually have a a tool called the Habitat Revolving Fund, and it is a loan, an internal loan that we give to ourselves. And when people donate to the Habitat Revolving Fund, we estimate that $1 goes in, but we can use that up to four times to be able to protect different properties. So it's a great tool that we have to be able to make sure we can meet our financial commitments.

Jered Hensen: I have the cash flow to actually act on opportunities. Yeah. And I did want to make a quick point because you mentioned the regional offices and the regional staff, those regional lands crew. If our listeners out there are interested in conservation programs, easements, things like that, that's the contact they would need, correct?

John Green: Yeah, and we actually, on our website, there is a land protection page. That land protection page should, I'm hoping, I'm looking at Kate for assurance that it does have this, should have names, contact information for those regional team leads. Now that that person may not be the person you actually meet with, but that's where I would recommend someone start. If they've got property, if they got an interest in talking to someone about whether their property might be a good fit or whether they might have an interest in just learning more about our lands program and what it could offer them, that's where I would start.

Jered Hensen: Yeah, and those regional landspeople are local. They're there. They're on the ground. They know people in your area. They won't be a stranger from a long ways away kind of thing.

Kate Hackett: Sometimes you don't even need to go to the website to write. You can contact a volunteer that we have. You can talk to our fundraisers or our partners. That's right. The interest will come to us.

Jered Hensen: Correct. Alright, I think we will take a quick break right now and then come back in just a second and talk a little about the benefits of conservation easements and those easements in a little more detail. All right. Welcome back. We are here sitting down with the lands team from Ducks Unlimited. Uh, we have, have Kate Hackett and Josh Green here in the room, and we've been discussing, uh, land protection and easements. And we're going to jump off on that into, into the deep end, I guess, at this point, and talk a little bit more about the different types of easements. And I'm going to pitch it over to, to Kate and Josh, whichever one of y'all wants to take a stab at it. And I'm just kind of describing the different types of conservation easements.

Kate Hackett: Great. So we did talk a little bit about the instrument, the conservation easement, and we have what we call a traditional conservation easement that is largely there to protect habitat and wetlands for waterfowl. But we also have a whole suite of other types of conservation easements available to us. We are working increasingly with landowners who have upland habitat or who have fields that they're grazing or agricultural lands so that we now are working more in working landscapes. And we have conservation easements specifically to support working landscapes. We also have conservation easements that are geared towards forests and protecting forests. And I want Josh to talk a little bit about our Flyway Forests program and the conservation easement available through that because it is a type of a spinoff of the conservation easements that we have. So yeah, I'll kick it over there.

John Green: Go ahead and talk about that one. Yeah. All right. Yeah. So Flyway Forest is a, it's a program that we've had for about a year and a half, two years now. It is a program that focuses on reforesting the Mississippi alluvial valley. So it's run through primarily through our southern regional office and the objective there is to, you know, DU is out there identifying private landowners who are interested in seeing some or a portion of their properties reforested. Those could be areas that have been used as pasture, those could be, you know, marginally productive ag ground, or just sort of areas that have been more or less fallow. And many landowners we've come to find do want to see this happen. And there are some great programs that have been around for decades that can allow landowners to do that. The NRCS's WRE program is one of them. CRP is another one. But not every landowner can find their way into those programs for a number of different reasons. They're competitive. They're very competitive. Those wait lists can be very long. And so, this program is another option for landowners. And, you know, there's a payment that's associated with enrolling in the program. You know, Ducks Unlimited and its partners, we're responsible for doing all the site prep work. planting all the trees, coordinating with those contractors, obviously working with the landowners sort of step-by-step along the way to make sure that we're planting the areas that they want to plant, that we're leaving out any areas that they want to retain for food plots or roads or any other uses, maybe little managed wetland areas as well. But at the end of the day, you have this great outcome, you have these trees, but if you don't do anything else, those trees aren't really protected. And our objective with this Flyway Forest Program is actually as these trees grow, we're going to measure, we're going to monitor, we're going to verify the carbon sequestration benefits that come off of these trees.

Jered Hensen: So this is one of these new projects that has sustainability funding on the back of it.

John Green: It is. It's a way to use a different type of funding, sustainability funding, in this case carbon offsets. to finance the conservation work we already want to be doing. And so we need for purposes not only of just wanting to make sure that those trees last, but also in order to claim and to generate those carbon offsets, those trees have to be protected, that carbon offset has to be protected. And so a conservation easement is the way that we achieve that. Because again, these landowners want to retain ownership of these properties. I mean, one of the reasons that they want to put the trees on there so that they and their heir, their kids can enjoy them one day. But we still have, we have a duty, we have a need to protect that investment. So the conservation easement is the way that we achieve that. And it's really timely that you brought that up because we're actually in the process of hopefully closing some of those first phase projects in the coming weeks.

Jered Hensen: Yeah and that's a project that I have have been helping with as far as some landowner outreach and stuff as well and so I think it's a really cool space to be able to use this different funding to kind of further our mission down with a different angle. I also want to say, I think it's really cool, this brings up some interesting points I wanted to make. You mentioned ag, you mentioned our normal conservation easement, you mentioned these flyaway forest, forest easements, they're all very different. And I think that's a really, really strong point. That's something I've learned when talking to y'all is that DU has the ability to kind of customize the easements to the project in a way that government agencies and a lot of other land trusts don't. You know, they're not able to do that. Obviously, we have to protect our investment in Flowey Forest, right? We've got to protect the trees. It's a, you know, the carbon offset stuff is a 40-year thing, and so there's some stipulations in there to make sure that those carbon credits are protected in the life of that. The habitat's protected perpetually. But then after that 40-year offset, you know, then we can talk with and work with the landowner on adequate management of that forest for wildlife, right? It's not a set, don't touch it ever kind of thing. We're in the business of good conservation and good habitat management, so we'll work with landowners that are interested in these programs. as long as it protects our investments and the programs that we have to. The carbon thing has to go through a verified basically carbon bank. We just have to protect those assets then. And then on the ag space, you mentioned kind of a little bit working with working lands. Can you mention a little bit more about what, like, if someone's a rice farmer out there and they want to put ground in a conservation easement, do we have an easement for them?

John Green: Yes. And there are likely to be more options. And in fact, there are some options. Rice stewardship program. So we have a rice stewardship program, which is geared more towards really helping rice farmers improve management practices, largely geared around water. And those don't necessarily come with a permanent conservation easement. Those are shorter term agreements. But If that landowner were interested in pursuing a conservation easement, a permanent conservation easement, and wanted to retain the ability to farm within those areas, even the traditional conservation easement that Kate mentioned is designed in a way that it could accommodate that long-term use. In addition to that, you're seeing more programs at the federal level and even at the state level that are specifically designed to support permanent protection of these agricultural landscapes. I mean, I don't think it's any secret that protecting and promoting farmers is a pretty key objective to conservation. It's not just about protecting farmland to grow food, to grow commodities. Those landscapes can provide really valuable habitat when they're managed correctly.

Jered Hensen: Waterfowl use primarily private ag ground. That's the habitat they use. So if we're not working with farmers to try and help them provide that habitat, then we're going to lose that battle.

Kate Hackett: And sometimes there's a misconception that if we are pursuing a conservation easement, that it's overly restrictive on land management practices. We actually look specifically at the conservation values of a piece of property that we are interested in protected, that provide waterfowl habitat, improve water quality, carbon sequestration, but other parts of that property may not have that level of conservation value. They're more utilized for working landscapes, for food and fiber production. And in those areas, the conservation easement doesn't have as many restrictions in it. So we really do work hard to work with a particular landowner to achieve what they need to achieve on their property, utilizing the suite of conservation easements available to us, and then tailoring them, working on developing the vision with that landowner, and then embodying it in a conservation easement.

Jered Hensen: Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, that customization, I think, is so critical to the success of DU and DU's ability to work with so many different partners, whether they're public, private, etc.

Kate Hackett: Absolutely. And I like that you're talking about the environmental and ecosystem services benefits, because I think that that's something that That's an area where the organization is growing tremendously right now. We are adding staff, we're devoting resources to that, and starting to develop a suite of conservation easements that are geared more towards ecosystem services and water quality and carbon. I hope everyone out there understands, right, that there are lots of different opportunities to be able to protect a resource with Ducks Unlimited.

John Green: Right, right. I would throw wetlands mitigation banking, species mitigation banking into that mix as well. I mean, I don't know that many people think of those as in the same umbrella as ecosystem services, but they in many respects are, and in each of those projects requires a different kind of easement, because each have different objectives. They all, at the end of the day, create suitable habitat, and that's why we're participating in them and we're advancing those projects. But you do have to be, those perpetual easements, they do have to be focused on certain things. Species Mitigation Bank, obviously, is going to focus on making sure activities that are going to harm that species habitat are prevented with wetlands mitigation banking. You know, you're going to want to make sure that the credits, the offsets that are generated by those mitigation banking activities through whatever, every single core district has their own way of measuring those. But you want to make sure that those are protected in the long run. And the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has to sign off on those easement documents. And so it's like, We talked at the beginning about the toolbox for doing land protection. It's not a toolbox anymore, it's a library at this point. It's a big, big group of different documents, and you have to be flexible, and that's the right way to do it, because every property is different, and so you want that permanent document, that forever document, to really be tailored to that piece of land.

Jered Hensen: Right, and I do want to mention we are talking a lot about perpetual easements. We do like perpetual easements, right? Yes, yes. A lot. But there are short-term options, right? There are. And I want to make sure that that's not, you know, not forgotten in this conversation. Can y'all speak a little to that?

John Green: Yeah, so not every easement is permanent. Most of ours are, but there are options out there for easements that are less permanent. I think, again, I feel like this is the third or fourth time I've talked about the NRCS, but they have, you know, WRE. There's a permanent option and there's a 30-year option. CRP is also a term-bound. It's not really an easement, but it has much the same effect that an easement does. Most people, I think, think of it more like a lease or just a long-term agreement. But you're right, not every easement is permanent. Some easements have a shorter term to them. You're seeing more of those shorter term easements within the ecosystem services space that we just talked about because many of these, you know, when you have some sort of third party bank essentially that is trying to register, create, and then sort of hold these whatever offset you're trying to manufacture for sale to a buyer who's interested in offsetting some environmental impact. In many cases, those entities, they have terms on the period within which you can generate those offsets. So, if it's 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years, oftentimes that easement will just be for that period of time. And going back to our Flyway Forest Program, that's something that we talked about. It's like, should we limit our easement to just that period of time? But we decided that we really wanted and felt it was important the outcome there, the reforestation outcome, to be a durable conservation asset. It's not, you know, we're not taking those first 40 years, we do have to pay attention to the rules that those carbon, the verifiers set. But it's not like where for anyone who's seen the Lego movie, we're not taking like the Kragle crazy glue and like squirting it all over the property and saying it cannot change. We just want the conservation values of the property to be durable. But these are dynamic landscapes. These are dynamic properties. We know we're going to have to adapt. We know we're going to have to be flexible. And we know that some management is going to be needed in the long run. And so we try to design all of our conservation easements with that in mind. Not to be, not to take a picture and say it must always look like this, but to understand and document what are the conservation values of this property and design a document that's going to allow those to thrive and evolve naturally.

Jered Hensen: Yeah, protect DU in the long run and the landowner in the long run, right? Both sides and their interests.

Kate Hackett: And that's the beauty of working with the lands team at DU, right, is that we are working with a landowner as a team of biologists, as a team of attorneys, so that we can blend all of that together. And Jared, I also want to talk some about, well, I care about perpetual easements and land conservation forever. And I want people who are listening to us right now to be compelled to think about conservation easements. And one of the really important parts about a conservation easement with Ducks Unlimited is that we can use the value of that conservation easement to generate match for grant funds. So every time we apply for grant funds, we are asked to provide a match. That is some level of organizational investment in the project so that the federal agency knows that we are committed and then they will put in grant funds.

Jered Hensen: Yeah, and a lot of those are one-to-one match Yes. At minimum. And to be competitive, you may have to come in higher than one to one. And so it takes a lot of income. Absolutely. Especially to go after million dollar projects.

Kate Hackett: So when someone donates a conservation easement to Ducks Unlimited, it's not just protecting that one piece of property forever. It's actually enabling us to go out after federal grant funds to do even more restoration and protection. So it's a spinoff, right? It's not just a one-time investment that someone gives us. We're able to leverage that into greater cash and grant funding.

Jered Hensen: Yeah, I think that was a good kind of summary of some of those benefits that DU has from the easements. Like, obviously, it protects our investment, right? Long term, it protects the investment for the waterfowl, because that's where we're focused. We want to make sure that that habitat is still on the ground 100 years from now. It provides funds for us to keep moving our machine forward, right? The conservation machine moves forward and the price to play in conservation is expensive. And that allows us to keep going and keep driving that system forward. And it also, as Josh just mentioned, it helps ensure those ecosystem services, the sustainability services, whether it's carbon, whether it's volumetric water benefits is a term you may have heard. Things like that, the term of that contract and that agreement we have on the sustainability projects, it helps protect that investment and that service for the life of that project as well. And we try to go beyond because we're not just doing general ES projects. Our ES projects are designed with Waterfowl in mind, right? It's not just, we don't do basic green infrastructure, we do green infrastructure for Waterfowl that also provides ES benefits. Right, then gets the job done, but we put a DU spin on those types of things.

Kate Hackett: Absolutely. And I want to bring up that it's the business of conservation and conservation forever is expensive. But let's let's take a little deep dive on trying to look at stormwater protection and drinking water and the role that wetlands play in those things. Right. So we see it through the lens of ducks and ducks habitat. But these wetlands provide tremendous numbers of other types of benefits. And we're talking about going more into those spaces. So, for example, looking where wetlands along the Mississippi River floodplain provide duck habitat and they provide stormwater protection to communities. And it's much better to protect a wetland there than to have to build some type of hard infrastructure. That will probably fail. That's right. It will probably fail and cost millions and millions of dollars or we can protect the property.

Jered Hensen: We can achieve both then.

Kate Hackett: That's right.

Jered Hensen: That's right. That win-win solution.

Kate Hackett: Those are always great. Same with protecting waterfowl habitat and wetlands high in the watershed for a drinking water source as well, right? We can help provide filtration for water resources.

Jered Hensen: Yeah, we're doing a lot of aquifer recharge work. Well, not a lot, but we're doing some. Doing some with the Ogalla Aquifer and playas and things like that. And it allows us to do some really cool work in a habitat that's sometimes difficult to break into, so we can work on playas. And those playas, like, you know, people that live around those playas, it's generally an ag community, and so they may not be worried as much about the duck benefits, but They are worried about water for irrigation and municipal water, right? And so if our projects benefit ducks for us, and it's fantastic there, and it benefits them, then those are great solutions and it's a great place for us to break into and try and jump into that area. And we've got to protect those projects moving forward.

Kate Hackett: Right. And that allows us to unlock new sources of funding for conservation.

Jered Hensen: Yes, exactly. And that's really cool. So this last little bit of time, I want y'all to jump into kind of we've talked about the benefits to wildlife. We talked about the benefits of easements to DU. Can y'all talk a little bit to the benefits of easements to the landowner? Anyone out there that might be listening and might be interested in easements and saying, okay, well, it's great. Sounds costly. Why would I want to do it? Why would I want to put my land? Other than maybe just conservation, right? Hopefully those people are out there. We know they are, right? But what are the other benefits to that landowner in putting their property in a conservation easement?

Kate Hackett: I think there are two suites of benefits, right, is the conservation legacy and ensuring that landowners tie to that property and their vision of that property and how it's played an important part in their livelihood and their families, that that's protected forever. and durable, and they're also financial benefits too. So I see those as two different suites of benefits. And as Josh mentioned earlier, a conservation easement allows a property owner to continue to own the property, but know that it's going to stay in that state forever. And that provides a lot of peace of mind for people who have a strong land ethic.

Jered Hensen: It does. Yeah. Yeah. Worried about, well, I don't have kids or grandkids that are interested in this. What's going to happen to it? So it can add some certainty in a very uncertain atmosphere.

Kate Hackett: Absolutely. And in the case where we have conservation easements that are donated to the organization, there can be financial benefits to the landowner as well. So it's a win-win.

Jered Hensen: Yes. I know we can't give tax advice, but. But there are some, as Josh mentioned a little earlier in the podcast, some tax incentives that are associated with conservation easements. Can you speak, obviously not in too much depth, but kind of a little bit to that, kind of what landowners that come to us and they donate a conservation easement, kind of examples of what they're doing and maybe why?

John Green: Yeah, I have been to so many continuing legal education classes, but never actually gotten to say this. But yes, as Jared said, I'm not providing tax advice. Please, please seek legal and tax advice with your own professional advisors. But, and Kate, you got to take the righteous part of this. Talk about the high-minded conservation legacy that you get to leave and leave the nitty gritty financial stuff to me. So thanks for that. So, I'll start with just donated conservation easements, which is actually a significant part of our conservation easement portfolio. Of those half million acres, I mean, gosh, 400,000, maybe more than that, are probably 100% donated conservation easements, which is pretty mind-blowing. to think about that that many acres have been, easements have been donated, forever easements, on that many acres of land, which is a pretty remarkable accomplishment. But, if a landowner does that, there are federal tax benefits that that landowner could take advantage of, and they come in the form of a tax deduction. Basically, when you donate a conservation easement, an appraiser appraises the value of that conservation easement, And then the value of the easement can be used by a landowner to offset federal income taxes. And there are limits to that, there are caps in place, and it kind of depends on what your situation might be. But in the event that, for instance, your conservation easement is particularly valuable and you can't use it all in that first year, there's the ability to roll that deduction over for up to 15 years. And so most landowners, you know, usually don't have any problem using up all of that deduction. In addition to those federal benefits, different states have other benefits. Some states offer deductions, some states offer tax credits, and so it really depends on where you are, but there can be some fairly significant tax benefits for a landowner just to donate a conservation easement. Then you have this other bucket of easement, purchased easements, and that can be an easement that's purchased for its full value, that can be an easement that's purchased just for a fixed rate per acre, that can be an easement that's bargain purchased. where let's say an easement has a value of $100,000, well a land trust will offer $30,000 and the landowner will then donate the remainder. So there'll be a little bit of cash that the landowner is able to get and then they're also able to actually take a tax deduction off of the portion that they donated. And so there could be a variety of different financial benefits for a landowner who is interested in donating or selling a conservation easement. It largely depends on what the program which program is available in their area and fits their property. And that's not just Ducks Unlimited, too. There are other NGOs and other conservation groups that are out there and any federal agencies are offering different programs and more are coming online every day. I mentioned earlier sort of the historic level of funding that we're experiencing right now for conservation. That's getting put on the landscape through programs like RCPP, through… I mean, just about any federal agency you can think of, it seems like has some initiative that you could use in theory to support conservation easements. Did I miss anything?

Kate Hackett: I don't think so.

John Green: I think that… I'm sure I did miss something.

Jered Hensen: I will ask this because this is something that I've had landowners ask me, and I know that the answer is yes and no to a certain degree. Can you stack conservation easements? What do you mean by that? Could you have more than one easement on a property?

John Green: You can. It can get complicated, but it's doable. If you have a property that, you know, I mentioned the number of programs that are out there right now. There may be one program that is geared specifically towards protecting a certain type of grazing habitat or a certain type of agricultural landscape with certain soil types, for instance. You could, in theory, have one conservation easement apply to that portion of your property and then the remaining portion of the property, let's say it's a beautiful bottomland hardwood forest. Well, that really wouldn't fit those agricultural programs. And so you could seek a different kind of program for that, whether it's a donated easement or a bargain purchased easement from a certain conservation group that has an interest in protecting that type of habitat, or if there's a grant that's out there or some other pot of funding that is prioritizing protection of that habitat. So, yes, you can stack those and you can even stack easements directly on top of each other. So, say you have one easement that does a great job of protecting, you know, a forested landscape. You know, requires really effective sustainable timber management, prevents certain harmful activities like clear cutting or high grading. But let's say it still allows for that property to be subdivided into lots of different parcels. You could come in and put another easement on top of that existing easement that stops that subdivision from happening. So, basically what that does is that keeps that already protected landscape from getting fragmented as well. So, you can stack easements directly on top of each other, but you want to make sure that there's some additional level of protection, that it's not just a meaningless stacking effort.

Jered Hensen: And some, from what I understand, especially some federal easements, don't allow stacking. Some of them don't, yeah. And so, check with your legal advisor on those types of questions.

John Green: It is a case-by-case thing.

Jered Hensen: Right. Kate, did you have anything to add?

Kate Hackett: I would add that those complexities are the things that cause conservation easement discussions to be protracted, right? So it is the case that we are poised well to step in and act quickly on protecting lands and form of purchasing properties or acquiring conservation easements. And that caveat needs to be made that Josh, just like the complexity, sometimes the devils are in the details, right? The complexity is important. And particularly as we're going into new programs and ecosystem services.

Jered Hensen: Right. Getting those details early. I've had discussions with other LANS team members since starting and it's like, oh yeah, some of the early easements we did, we didn't get the details just right there. And now we're having to work through those. And so y'all pay a lot more attention to the details now. For sure.

Kate Hackett: And we have a lot more experience, right, of knowing what the possible outcomes are.

Jered Hensen: Well, this has been extremely enlightening, and I've really enjoyed sitting down and talking with y'all. Do y'all have any closing kind of points or pitches or anything you would like to say to the listeners before we jump off here?

John Green: Protect your land. It's awesome. Conservation easements really are not I think conservation easements get, you can find a lot of material out there that could scare people away from conservation easements. When done well though, they're a great tool and they're a great experience. You know, it's more than just this thing out there that sets up a group like Ducks Unlimited as the forever police on what you can and can't do on your property. It's not that. It's when it's done well, and we try to always do them well, what you're doing is you're creating a forever partner on how to conserve your property. I mean, we're, someone is out there every year to monitor that easement. That monitoring isn't just to make sure that you're not violating the terms of the easement. It's to steward the property, help you achieve as a landowner your long-term objectives. Yeah, make sure those benefits are there. Yeah. That's awesome. I would encourage anyone out there who's even remotely interested in this idea of a long-term partner like Ducks Unlimited to consider a conservation easement as a way to achieve that.

Jered Hensen: Awesome. Well, who would they reach out to if they were interested in communicating about an easement at DU?

John Green: So, there are a lot of ways to get in touch with us. One, check our website. We have a land protection lands team page and their regional level contacts. Two, as Kate mentioned earlier, you can probably contact just about any volunteer or DU staff person you know. Everyone at Ducks Unlimited knows we do land protection. And so if you get in touch with someone at Ducks Unlimited and you have some questions and want to learn more about conservation easements, It may take us a little while to get you the right person, it may be a couple of days, but we'll find someone to get back in touch with you and have that conversation.

Kate Hackett: And Jared, I would just add that a lot of the work that we do in our personal and our professional lives doesn't have durability, right? Right. Things may not last beyond our own lifetime, but when you work in land protection and you have a conservation easement, that is a legacy forever that extends way beyond your own lifetime.

Jered Hensen: Forever is a long time. Absolutely. Yep. Well, Kate and Josh, thank y'all so much for being here. And I want to thank the listeners as well for listening in on this land protection podcast. So I would love to also recognize and thank Chris Isaacs, our producer over here. And again, thanks for listening to Ducks Unlimited podcast and we'll catch y'all down the road.