Training restrictions, costly workarounds, and compromised training realism can result from incompatible development surrounding the installation (external encroachment) and from threatened and endangered species on the installation (internal encroachment). In 2003, Title 10, Section 2684(a) of the U.S. Code authorizes the DoD to form agreements with non-federal governments or private organizations to limit encroachments and other constraints on military training, testing, and operations by establishing buffers around installations. An assessment of DoD’s Readiness and Environmental Protection Initiative (REPI) program to buffer installation encroachment is presented by Lachman et al. (2007). In their evaluation, Lachman et al. identified numerous benefits of buffering as related to conserving habitat and environmental quality as well as community relationships and partnerships. Examples of benefits include:
- Preserving habitat, biodiversity, and threatened and endangered species by helping to protect habitat, wildlife corridors, biodiversity, and ecosystems; helping protect and sustain threatened and endangered species off base; and helping to keep at-risk species off the federal threatened and endangered species list.
- Water benefits, including protecting watersheds and ameliorating water quality and quantity concerns.
- Strategic landscape, regional, and ecosystem management and planning. For example, buffering can help protect broader ecosystems at ecoregional scales (e.g., Gulf Coastal Plain Ecosystem Partnership and Central Shortgrass Prairie ecoregion).
- Other environmental benefits such as improvement of installation environmental management and increased education and awareness for local governments and communities about the need for ecosystem protection and management.
- Community relations benefits for the installation and military, such as improved relations with environmental groups, regulators, state and local governments, and landowners; improved installation public communications process; and improved environmental and overall reputation of the installation.
- Working partnerships benefits such as improved working relationships with partners in both buffering projects and other activities; and helping to foster more collaborative approaches to conservation in the region.
- Improved internal installation collaboration and management such as improved installation management attitudes about collaboration with nonmilitary organizations, and improved collaboration and relationships between training and environmental staff.
The process to establish a conservation easement on buffer lands varies with each military service, partnership, and local real estate condition. Typically, a land conservation trust organization purchases lands from the owner with funds contributed by the military and the participating partners. In exchange, the military service receives a restrictive easement or other assurances that the property will be perpetually protected. Proposed development or land use changes on easement lands need DoD service approval to ensure compatibility with the mission40.
The process to establish a conservation easement on buffer lands varies with each military service, partnership, and local real estate condition. Typically, a land conservation trust organization purchases lands from the owner with funds contributed by the military and the participating partners. In exchange, the military service receives a restrictive easement or other assurances that the property will be perpetually protected. Proposed development or land use changes on easement lands need DoD service approval to ensure compatibility with the mission40. Early DoD examples: The Army led this movement in the 1990s by acquiring conservation easements on lands around Fort Bragg, NC, that were suitable habitat for the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker.41 The Army eventually expanded and formalized this strategy into the Army Compatible Use Buffer (ACUB) Program. The Marine Corps followed soon after by acquiring easements on land adjacent to its Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, also in North Carolina.
Cooperative partnerships have grown in subsequent years to the point where they are everyday instruments in the military land manager’s toolbox. The Fort Carson Regional Partnership is helping to protect what remains of Colorado’s short-grass prairie and the flora and fauna that inhabit it. The Coastal Georgia Private Lands Initiative was established by Fort Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield and their partners to protect some 120,000 acres surrounding the base.
And a well-known and celebrated conservation partnership is the Northwest Florida Greenway42, a consortium of military, government, and nonprofit organizations that seeks to protect a hundred-mile-long protected corridor of valued biodiversity that connects Eglin Air Force Base and the Apalachicola National Forest. The Greenway partners include DoD, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Okaloosa Economic Development Council, Air Force Air Armament Center, and the Nature Conservancy. The partnership region has been identified as one of the six most biologically diverse regions in the United States.
40 U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 2004. Fact Sheet: Conservation Lands as Compatible Use Buffers.
41 For more on conservation easements, see The Nature Conservancy Web site at https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/who-we-are/how-we-work/private-landsconservation/
42 http://www.cooperativeconservation.org/viewproject.aspx?id=656
Next Page: Army Compatible Use Buffer (ACUB) Program43
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