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CONSERVATION CORNER
(For the week of July 20, 2009)
Private Landowner Network
by James L. Cummins

Over 70 percent of the continental United States is in private ownership, therefore the majority of our wildlife, wildlife habitat and natural resources are on private lands. Due in part to development pressures, these lands face the greatest threat of changing hands and use over the next 10 to 15 years. So what can be done to turn these trends around?

The Private Landowner Network, or PLN for short, can be found at www.privatelandownernetwork.org. PLN is an online directory of over 11,000 conservation resources nationwide that are organized, simple to use and in a format that is easily navigable. Conservation is not just the concern of government and environmental organizations, more and more it is about the decisions of private landowners to steward their lands for clean water, healthy soils, open space and wildlife habitat. And PLN can help implement these decisions.

PLN's library is a great tool for landowners wanting to learn about conservation. The library is categorized for both the needs of landowners and professionals and is full of articles that are easy to read and email. The PLN library can also be useful for educating accountants, attorneys and estate planners.

Look through PLN's conservation yellow pages to find over 62 resource categories some of which are: biologists, foresters, lawyers and conservation programs. You can search for resources by resource type, town, county, state or zip code. It is free to post a listing on PLN, and you can add images and descriptions of services. At the top of each page on PLN is an "Add me to PLN" link. Service providers can simply click the link and email the administrator to start a listing.

PLN is a project of Resources First Foundation (RFF), a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization. They have created this valuable resource to promote private land conservation efforts, serving as a bridge between landowners and the resources they need to implement conservation actions. RFF is guided by the principle that people are a very important component to the conservation equation.

Check out RFF's other web-based resources for conservation: the Conservation Tax Center (www.conservationtaxcenter.org); Cooperative Conservation America (www.cooperativeconservationamerica.org); the Alternative Enterprise and Agritourism Resource Evaluation Guide (www.resourcesfirstfoundation.org/aea); and the Katrina Reforestation Outreach Program (www.katrinareforestation.org). The Conservation Tax Center will be profiled next week.