Does conservation pay?

Excerpt

As conservationists, we often approach the question posed in the title above as, “We hope so,” even while we stress an environmental ethic or adoption of BMPs as a way to avoid regulation.

A forthcoming Journal of Soil and Water Conservation article (Harbor, et.al) discovered that building lots with vegetative cover sell for more than bare lots. In fact, the difference is greater than the cost of seeding. This suggests that developers could increase their profits if they planted vegetative covers.

A recent development project I was asked to review had a unique concept for maximizing their returns while preserving aspects of the environment. The developer set aside over 20 percent of the acreage and is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to restore ecological integrity to those acres by planting native grasses and trees, curtailing streambank erosion, and restoring wetlands. The developer will then deed those acres with conservation easements to a local land trust for the long-term management. The company has even platted their development so that there are not home sites on the wooded bluff overlooking the riparian corridor and they are planning for some mixed use commercial in order to reduce dependence …