Lesser Prairie-Chicken. Photo: USFWS

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management have launched two voluntary schemes to encourage energy companies, ranchers, farmers, and federal and state agencies to protect or restore habitat for the Lesser Prairie-Chicken and the sand dune lizard.

These Candidate Conservation Agreements (or Candidate Conservation Agreements with Assurances when applied to private lands) are a proven way to encourage the conservation of imperiled species. Participants in such agreements are given a powerful incentive to take part. By undertaking certain conservation measures on the land they own or lease, or by paying into a fund to support conservation, they are granted the assurance that should the species later become listed, they will be allowed to continue their land operations unaffected. This compelling “carrot and stick” approach has been used for a number of species including the gopher tortoise on Department of Defense lands in Florida, and the yellow-cheeked darter in the Little Red River in Arkansas.

Both the prairie-chicken and the lizard are found in the Permian Basin, a large sedimentary formation in western Texas/southeastern New Mexico that is one of the biggest oil and gas-producing regions in the West. Both species are currently candidates awaiting listing under the Endangered Species Act. The new Candidate Conservation Agreements will apply to ranchers, energy companies, and other individuals and organizations that lease lands from the federal government. It will supplement an existing agreement which applies to private and state lands.