The Army implements DoD’s authority to form agreements with non-federal governments or private organizations for buffering purposes through the ACUB program, which is managed overall at Army Headquarters level by the office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Installations. Active Army cooperative agreements are managed by U.S. Army Environmental Command (USAEC) (a subordinate of the U.S. Army Installation Management Command or IMCOM), and Army National Guard Directorate ACUB cooperative agreements are managed by the Army National Guard Environmental Programs Division.
The ACUB program allows installations to work with partners to encumber off-post land to protect habitat and buffer training without acquiring any new land for Army ownership. Through ACUB, the Army reaches out to partners to identify mutual objectives of land conservation and to prevent development of critical open areas. The Army can contribute funds to the partner’s purchase of easements or properties from willing landowners. These partnerships preserve high-value habitat and limit incompatible development in the vicinity of military installations. Establishing buffer areas around Army installations limits the effects of encroachment and maximizes land inside the installation that can be used to support the installation’s mission.
Across ACUB Programs at over 40 separate installations, as of September 31, 2019, the Army has protected 390,903 acres of natural habitat, open space, and working lands through its cooperative agreements with more than 50 partners ranging from large, nationwide land trusts to smaller local conservation entities, to state and municipal governments. Total ACUB transactions (942) equate to over a billion dollars ($1,067,240,000), which includes not only the cost of the land or conservation easements themselves, but also various other allowable and authorized tasks such as due diligence, monitoring and enforcement, and land management actions. This expenditure total includes $278.74 million from the DoD Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration (REPI) Program, $305.31 million in Army service dollars, and $483.18 million in partner contributions (both cash and in-kind services).
Partner share varies across all the individual ACUB cooperative agreements, but cumulatively, ACUB partners are contributing approximately 45% ($483.18M of $1,067.24M) of the total program cost.
43 https://aec.army.mil/index.php/conserve/ACUB
DoD Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration Program
The DoD’s REPI Program is a key tool for combating encroachment that can limit or restrict military training, testing, and operations. The REPI Program protects these military missions by helping remove or avoid land-use conflicts near installations and addressing regulatory restrictions that inhibit military activities. The REPI Program is administered by the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
A key component of the REPI Program is the use of buffer partnerships among the military services, private conservation groups, and state and local governments, authorized by Congress at 10 U.S.C. § 2684a. In November 2020, the REPI website listed and profiled 36 buffering projects on Army lands, 31 on Navy lands, 9 on Marine Corps lands, 22 on Air Force lands and 11 on Joint Bases. These win-win partnerships share the cost of acquisition of easements or other interests in land from willing sellers to preserve compatible land uses and natural habitats near installations and ranges that helps sustain critical, at-risk military mission capabilities. Detailed program description, resources, fact sheets, project profiles, the REPI Metrics Report, and annual REPI Reports to Congress are available at the REPI website44.
REPI also supports large landscape partnerships that advance cross-boundary solutions and link military readiness, conservation, and communities with federal and state partners through a common, collaborative framework. Such partnerships include the Southeastern Regional Partnership for Planning and Sustainability and the Western Regional Partnership. REPI also participates in the Sentinel Landscapes Partnership between DoD and the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior.
In addition to buffering projects, REPI also develops and transfers lessons learned from innovative strategies and pilot projects that address regulatory barriers and constraints, such as projects focusing on off-installation habitat conservation to meet on-installation Endangered Species Act obligations. Other activities include hosting educational webinars and range tours, publishing primers focused on a variety of stakeholder groups and encroachment issues, and providing additional resources to support the military services.
Since its first partnerships in 2003, REPI has grown and fostered a sea change in how DoD responds to conservation and military training issues and engages in outside-the-fence land use planning. Engaging with all stakeholders at the federal, state, and local level, REPI continues to explore policy and regulatory solutions to incompatible development, off-installation species habitat, and other mission sustainability issues.
Sentinel Landscapes
The Sentinel Landscapes Partnership is a coalition of federal agencies, state and local governments, and nongovernmental organizations that works with private landowners to advance sustainable land management practices around military installations and ranges. Founded in 2013 through an MOU by the DoD, Department of Agriculture (USDA), and Department of the Interior (DOI), the partnership connects private landowners with voluntary government assistance programs that support defense, conservation, and agricultural missions45. In 2018, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) introduced language that formally recognized the Sentinel Landscapes Partnership in statute.
Leadership from the three founding agencies coordinate the partnership at the national level through the Federal Coordinating Committee (FCC). The FCC consists of representatives from DoD, USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), the U.S. Forest Service (FS), the Farm Service Agency (FSA), the FWS, and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The FCC designates locations as sentinel landscapes and then works to connect private landowners with government assistance programs that fund land protection and natural resource restoration projects. By aligning these programs in sentinel landscapes, USDA, DoD, and DOI use taxpayer dollars more efficiently and accomplish more on the ground with fewer resources. The vast majority of DoD funding for Sentinel Landscapes comes from the DoD REPI Program.
Since its beginning, the Partnership has leveraged $141 million in DoD funds with $223 million in USDA funds, $41 million in DOI funds, $169 million in state funds, $15 million in local funds, and $80 million in private funds to support partnership projects. These contributions have protected over 467,000 acres of land and implemented sustainable management practices on 2.3 million acres around high value military testing and training areas46. There are currently seven Sentinel Landscapes that encompass a broad representation of continental U.S. biogeography: Avon Park Air Force Range (Florida), Camp Ripley (Minnesota) (see Camp Ripley Sentinel Landscape Case Study within this Guide), Eastern North Carolina, Fort Huachuca (Arizona), Georgia, Joint Base Lewis-McChord (Washington), and Middle Chesapeake (Maryland).
A recent examination of DoD conservation programs concluded that greater funding for REPI and more ambitious implementation of the Partnership would enhance local land use decisions that protect conservation resources near installations, expand land acquisition by other agencies in DoD’s priority areas, and incentivize private landowners to promote conservation and national defense (Li and Male 2020). Moreover, as development marches into areas surrounding installations, larger parcels become fragmented and real estate values climb, thereby eroding the value of funds available to manage encroachment over time (Lachman et al. 2007).
45 https://sentinellandscapes.org/
46 2020 Sentinel Landscapes Accomplishments Report, available at https://sentinellandscapes.org/about/resources/
Next Page: Examples of conservation partnerships
Author
David S. Jones, RA IV, Ecologist/Project Manager
Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands
Warner College of Natural Resources
Colorado State University
Buffering umbrella: minimizing encroachment and conflict, sustaining training
Buffering umbrella: minimizing encroachment and conflict, sustaining training