INTRODUCTION

ON ELECTION DAY, a community passes a measure that will fund a new land conservation program. The supporters of this measure celebrate, go to sleep, and wake up happy the next day. However, as they pick up the champagne bottles and recycle the campaign posters, they start to realize that a new challenge lies ahead. Now that the voters have approved the funding to protect cherished land, a program must be created to spend the allocated monies in the most efficient and productive way possible. These conservationists have pressing and important work to do.

In some communities, of course, the people who work to pass the measure understand before the vote that getting money is only the beginning. The people who design a program most often start their work by looking to established programs for advice. They collect sample documents, legislation, and policy manuals and use these as a basis for their new program. However, this approach has its pitfalls. For one thing, it is time-consuming, and, as any conservationist can tell you, time lost equals land lost, especially in areas where the pressure for development is intense.

A more serious drawback of this approach is that the programs used as models may not be the best ones to emulate. People who are launching a new program may not know all the results produced by the agency whose procedures are being used as a model. Thus they may reproduce expensive mistakes, unnecessary bureaucracy, or unproductive policies, and they risk perpetuating ineffective practices. A program can be large or well established without being a good model to follow. For these reasons, it might be wiser, especially for a small, new entity, not to use other agencies as models.

A similar dilemma confronts people who manage existing programs and want to assess their past performance or evaluate ways to improve their future efforts. Community leaders and program staff search for appropriate measurement techniques and methods. Until now, it appeared that the only valid approach was to compare procedures and progress with those of other agencies. But, in a similar way, you cannot really know whether the comparison is valid.

Programs used as
models by new programs
may not be the best ones
to emulate.

THE PURPOSE OF THIS PUBLICATION

This handbook, produced by The Trust for Public Land (TPL), seeks to eliminate the need for original research by local government programs that will be creating or upgrading policies to guide public investments in land for a range of natural, cultural, and recreational purposes. It presents the results of extensive investigations into local land acquisition agencies around the United States. To create this publication, we studied communities of various sizes with programs that protect many kinds of natural resources. However, this book is not merely a compilation of sample documents and a list of the techniques currently in use. Instead, experienced land conservation experts from around the country, led by a team of TPL staff, with experience in local government, land trusts, planning, law, and real estate, have provided their wisdom and advice to advance land protection work at the local government level. Their input and the information from the communities that were studied have been distilled into the recommendations you will find throughout this publication. (See Appendix I for the names of the interviewees.)

Both common and unusual strategies for conservation success were studied in order to create the practices we recommend here for local government land conservation programs. These strategies have been proven to yield good results and can therefore be trusted as cornerstones for new programs. Each key chapter provides a list of best practices, which present essential recommendations and show how at least one successful program has approached the chapter's topic.

The Trust for Public Land, the funders, the author, and all the contributors want to help citizens, elected officials, agency staff, and nonprofits involved in land protection to establish as many good acquisition programs as they can, as quickly as possible. Doing so will protect more of this country's special places by saving public dollars and making those dollars available more rapidly.

Securing the passage of a funding referendum is a huge challenge for most communities. It is the subject of a useful reference work, The Conservation Finance Handbook, also published by TPL. This new publication begins where that handbook leaves off: it discusses the practices that follow the success of the funding measure and serves as a useful guide for reviewing or assessing established programs.

Much of the work described here can be done before the election. Efforts to shape the program beforehand may actually strengthen the cause and create greater momentum for voter approval. Elected officials, citizens, and local government staff frequently draft language to guide the implementation of a program before the measure. You can use this handbook to guide the creation of the implementation steps in advance. If you do, it may give the voting public confidence that the planned program will be effective, accountable, and consistent with the goals described during the campaign.

USE AND ADAPT WHAT YOU NEED FROM EACH CHAPTER

In an attempt to cover all common elements, this handbook includes some information that applies only to certain parts of the country. This is a diverse nation, governed by diverse state and local governments that follow their own laws. Not all topics are relevant to all communities or programs, nor is the order in which they are presented always right for a given community or program, so use what you can. Also, although this handbook was written for local governments, many of its recommendations are applicable to state programs as well.

Depending on the capacities of government where you live or work, you may find that this handbook addresses topics that seem unnecessary or irrelevant. However, if you are starting, expanding, restructuring, or making significant changes in a program—such as adding staff for the first time—we suggest that you examine each chapter with an open mind. You may find techniques or approaches that will improve your operations. Improved functioning means more conservation per dollar and programs that better meet conservation objectives.

WHAT IS A GOOD PROGRAM?

To develop the best practices that are recommended in this publication, we...