Land Stewardship: Increasing Economic Vitality and Ecological Health with Guest Lesli Allison, CEO of the Western Landowners Alliance

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Justin Osborn: Welcome to the Realtors Land Institute podcast, The Voice of Land. The industry's leading land real estate organization.

JO: Today's podcast guest is Lesli Allison. Lesli's gonna be talking to us about land stewardship, increasing economic vitality, and ecological health. Lesli is CEO of Western Landowners Alliance. A west wide landowner-led organization, advancing policies and practices that sustain working lands, connected landscapes and native species. Welcome to the podcast, Lesli.

Lesli Allison: Thank you. It's delightful to be here.

JO: Yeah. I'm glad you're on. I'm excited to hear more about, Western Landowners Alliance and what part of the country you're in.

LA: Well, so I'm based in Santa Fe, but our administrative headquarters are actually in Denver. And we have staff in a number of the different states, but our geographic coverage area is roughly the contiguous 11 western states. Sort of west of the 100th meridian kind of country.

JO: Okay. And how long have you been with the organization? 

LA: I was lucky enough to be at actually the founding meeting, which happened in 2011 in Colorado. And we formed a board and officially launched in 2012. And at that time I was a ranch manager and was just volunteering with the effort. But in 2012, I came on board in a part-time capacity with programs, and then in 2014 I became executive director.

JO: And what exactly is Western Landowners Alliance? 

LA: So we are a west-wide organization of landowners, land managers, basically people who steward the land in the west, who are dedicated to keeping these working in private lands whole and healthy for the benefit of people and wildlife. And so we come from all kinds of walks of life and different landowner interests and different types of operations, different political perspectives. But the one thing we really have in common is the importance of the land and a sense of our responsibility in taking care of it. And we work in a number of different areas. So we do really three primary things, in our work. First is, we help landowners with the knowledge and science they need to be successful in managing land and taking good care of it. So that's a lot of peer-to-peer knowledge sharing.

LA: It's connecting landowners to good research and relevant science, technical expertise. It's... And peer-to-peer knowledge sharing is a really big piece of that. The second thing we do is work on the policy and economic conditions to support keeping these lands whole and healthy, to support landowners being able to keep them economically viable and also really take good care of them. So that's the policy and economics work we do. So a lot of advocacy and making sure that landowners are really at the table when important decisions are being made at whatever level that is. State, local, federal.

LA: And then finally, we do a lot around communications. We've got an increasingly urbanized public that doesn't have a lot of experience on land, a lot of issues out there. And so we try to help educate one another, educate the public and improve public dialogue among all stakeholders so that we can actually arrive at better policy solutions and better practices and things like that.

JO: So are you, like... My wheels are kind of turning here. So sorry if this is a bad example, but are you like going up to the landowner and when they say, Okay. Help me determine the highest and best use of this property. I've got 1000 acres. I bought it with some money from our trust that we inherited. We're not landowners big landowners, we're from the city and we're trying to figure out what's the best use of this property. Do they hire you to come in and help educate them that, or is that a horrible example? [chuckle]

LA: Well, it is partly right, and it's partly not right. So, they don't hire us to come in and educate them. But by joining the alliance, being a member of the alliance, the people become part of a west-wide network of landowners and land managers who are learning together. And so we make resources available to that network. And as an example, we might host stewardship tours on a subject like on Aspen Management, for example, in Colorado. A lot of interest in how do we manage our Aspen to make sure they're on the landscape long-term? How do we manage forests? How do we manage grazing? How do we run a hunting program? Those are all the types of questions that landowners land managers have. And that peer-to-peer knowledge sharing is fantastic because there's, people have been at this a long time and they've learned things and that shared learning can help save, a lot of hard lessons, a lot of time, and a lot of expense.

LA: And so it taps into a kind of a learning network, if you will, or a practitioner's community. And then we also, help landowners understand what the issues are. What do you need to be thinking about in terms of water rights. We're hearing a lot about what might or might not be coming down in terms of Colorado River Basin water and how that might have implications for water rights. So we try to keep landowners informed on those issues and then informed about resources that are available to them. There may be funding available, for example, for watershed restoration that could benefit their property, reduce the fire risk, and things like that. And then when those landowners come to us and say, Hey, I've got a problem.

LA: I'm trying to do this, but I'm running into this public policy barrier, how do I fix it? Then we try to help them sort that out. If it's a problem that a lot of landowners are having, then we can think about what we might be able to do to help address that barrier to good stewardship. We obviously can't help every landowner with every problem out there, but we try to help as many as we can.

JO: Okay. That makes sense. Thanks for that example. Was there a certain circumstance that happened, or like, what was the need, I guess. Why did you feel the need to start an organization like this? 

LA: Yeah, that's a wonderful question. I love talking about that because for such a long time... Well, in so many areas in our society today, we have this increasing polarization that happens. So you have landowners or versus sportsmen in the newspapers today. You have ranchers versus environmentalists. You have all of these, Republicans versus Democrats, red versus blue.

LA: We have all of these sort of polarized positions. And in my experience, in our experience, most people really are actually somewhere in the middle. And the same was true with landowners. We have landowners who are affiliated with agricultural, trade organizations because they're trying to make a livelihood. They're in agriculture. And those trade organizations do a very good job of taking care of that industry, protecting the industry. We also have landowners who are members of environmental organizations because environmental organizations are taking care of another set of values on, out there.

LA: But sometimes those things can be at odds with one another. And so there's this, sometimes this entrenched warfare between the two. And if you're a landowner or land manager, most of the time you're caught in the middle. You see the, you see, you have to make a livelihood. You care about agriculture, you're trying to do a good job producing healthy food. And you also care about the environment. You do care about wildlife, and you care about the health of your land, and you care about how you pass that land on the next generation. And so we felt that there was a voice that wasn't being represented, of people who own and manage and have real experience on the ground, who care about all of these things and care about, at the end of the day, the land itself, because if the land isn't healthy, if it's fractured and unhealthy, we lose agriculture.

LA: We lose those environmental things we care about, and we really lose the future we're trying to pass on to the next generation. And so this was a voice, an informed voice who cares about land. And that's what we focus on. And we're not a land trust. We're not doing conservation easements, we support conservation easements. That's a wonderful tool for landowners, and that's not what we do. Again, we just provide the knowledge, the policy support, the economic support, and the public support to help take care of this land. And a landowner voice in that space is what we felt was missing.

JO: So you mentioned the word policy a couple of times. Are you at liberty to discuss some of the current policy work that you're working on right now? 

LA: Sure. We work on a wide range of policies. Farm Bill, of course is in negotiation for renewal right now. And so we work on Farm Bill policies and, the Farm Bill is through the US Department of Agriculture. The biggest, program and funding source for agriculture and private land conservation in the country. So when that gets rewritten every five years or so. It's very important that we have landowners providing input into that process. And particularly in the west, we wanna see is a farm bill that supports landowners and producers in the West that makes sense in our landscape. So, for example Western Water is in crisis right now, and we wanna make sure that we've got some farm bill support to help us address some of these western water challenges that we're having today.

LA: Another example, farm bill policy. We're working on a lot of the public and environmental and sportsman's groups are very interested and so are landowners in ensuring that our big game populations can migrate and survive. They're important for lots of reasons, not the least of which is, hunting economies and things like that. Tourism and because, wildlife in its own right is very important to us and part of the ecosystem.

LA: So we wanna make sure that we can help support these big game migrations, but not in a way that drives people out of business. A lot of these big game populations concentrate in the wintertime on private working lands. And they can compete with livestock for forage, they knock down fences. Some parts of the country, they'll bring Brucellosis and predators with them. So, how do we create programs that can support, continued ranching or farming and also wildlife.

LA: And so we're working in the Farm Bill in a program called the Grasslands Conservation Reserve Program. And that program provides an annual payment that helps landowners manage land to support grassland ecosystems and wildlife, and also continue grazing. So that's kind of one of those win-win programs. We wanna make sure that that is, supported and improved in the Farm Bill as an example.

LA: And then, other policy issues that we're working on, things like, The Endangered Species Act. We as an organization support the intent of The Endangered Species Act. We don't wanna see wildlife going extinct because of us on our watch. Again, though, we don't wanna see it become an issue of wildlife versus people's ability to make a living and keep land intact. And so we're working on improving regulatory assurances that say to landowners, Hey, if you've done a good job for wildlife, you shouldn't be punished by ESA regulation.

LA: You should have some regulatory assurance that your good work is gonna be honored and respected. And we're gonna take care to make sure that you're also successful in your operation. And those exist, but they're not available to landowners very well. So we're working to get rid of the barriers to landowner participation in those agreements.

LA: So kind of gets wonky at that level, but it just gives you an example. We're also working to help folks get in... So this is relevant for Colorado, for example. Landowners that are trying to operate ranchers who are trying to operate where we've got wolves and grizzly bear populations expanding are in a challenging situation in some cases, And there are some practices that landowners can do that help to some extent, reduce conflicts and losses. We wanna secure some cost share support through the farm bill for some of those practices. Range riding, fencing, specific fencing we call flattery, carcass removal programs, things like that. So getting some of that cost share support to reduce those conflicts, for example. And then making sure that we've got compensation when we do have losses to predators. So those things are examples of other policies we're working on.

JO: Well, and selfishly speaking, the wildlife examples you talk about kind of hit close to home for me, just being an outdoors man and, loving, loving nature and having kids that spend a lot of time in the outdoors. But something I never really thought about until you just said it is, here, here in Durango, Colorado where I'm at, we have exactly what you talked about, where the elk, have a tendency.

JO: There's a few local resident herds, but most of the elk, live most of the summer up high at the higher elevations. And then as the snow comes in they all migrate down and they end up spending the winter on private ranches. And, yeah, you think about all across the west, that's, pretty common. And, I see it happen here, but the way you're talking about it, yeah, it's, I'm glad your organization is being reactive to try to help, provide a solution to that. I wish we as a country could have been a little more proactive on that, hundreds of years ago, but now there's just no public land left hardly down in the winter habitat, it seems like for a lot of these big game animals.

LA: Yeah, yeah. You're absolutely right. In fact, on the western slope of Colorado, I believe the statistic is that private lands provide 95% of the winter range for mule deer, for example. And in the west, it's actually the winter range, which is the limiting factor on our ungulate populations. We got kind of plenty of the summer range up in the national forest for them to disperse across, but then they come down in the winter and it's a shrinking land base.

LA: And so then you have these intense concentrations of these wildlife on people's hay fields and places they're trying to make a living. And if that puts them out of business, then everybody loses. 'Cause then we lose that habitat altogether. And so how do you make that work.

JO: Well, is there a certain topic of all these that you've discussed that you'd say some of the landowners are really focusing on more than the others? 

LA: It's interesting. The, focus varies by what's happening at any given time. There's always a lot of hot issues on our plate. So for example, when we're hearing about, severe water shortages in the West. I mean, that's one of the biggest ones. In fact, I'll tell you that if you look at a 50,000 foot level at what shapes the west and what's gonna shape landowner's decisions and the fate of private and working lands, you start with number one as economics. If people can't make a livelihood on these lands, if they can't make the bottom line work, can't pay the cost of ownership, those lands fairly quickly go into development. You guys know how much development pressure we have in a place like Colorado, for example. So economics, and when you look at what are the economic drivers that help people pay the cost of owning, managing land, there's not that many.

LA: You've get, agriculture is the number one by far and away. The second is recreation, things like, hunting and fishing and guest ranching. Very important part of our, basically business models for ranches in the west. The third one is energy development, either renewables or conventional. And then in a very distant fourth coming online a little bit, but not much yet is ecosystem service markets like carbon credits, for example, or wetland mitigation.

LA: But those are really not registering on the scale significantly yet. So those are the drivers that we have that push back against the other types of land uses that these lands would convert to otherwise. So economics is number one, water is number two. Water is the lifeblood of the west. What happens when we don't have enough water to irrigate our farm fields to water, livestock to grow in our cities? 

LA: I mean, it's a big, big issue in the west. So that's very much on landowners minds as well. And then, wildlife management tends to be a hot issue a lot. And lately, increasingly, there's a big conflict between sportsman groups that are pushing for more and more public access across public land. Or I mean, across private land to get to public lands or on private lands. We've had court battles in both Arizona, I mean, Colorado and New Mexico and Utah recently over stream access. Those are big deals. And they're not covered well in the media. I can tell you that. We're not covering all the issues. If recreation is one of the biggest economic drivers that is allowing private lands to stay intact and provide wildlife habitat, and you don't allow private lands to participate and benefit in the recreation economy, you created a problem there.

LA: So those are, that's very much on landowners minds right now. And then of course soil health is another one that's really popping up on people's radars. How do we take better care of our range lands? How do we do better grazing management? Regenerative ag is something that people are very interested in and curious about right now. So those things are on folks' minds.

LA: And then, I'll mention one last one that's pretty hot in Colorado right now. There's this, thing we call process-based watershed restoration. So let's say you have a little creek maybe sometime back in the day it was channelized because you wanted to protect a hay field or something. And people are going in when, when we've lost our beavers, We don't have beavers that we used to have in these watersheds that played a very important role in watershed health.

LA: So we have people going in and doing things like installing Beaver Dam Analogs, which are kinda like fake beaver dams, or real beavers or, wetlands and we'll riparian vegetation, plants along the streams. And that helps slow the water down. And that's important because when you slow water, that water infiltrates, it replenishes our groundwater and our things like our springs, our aquifers. And it allows the water to come down the mountain more slowly so that your lower elevation irrigation seasons are extended. It re-greens our upper watersheds so we get more shade, more vegetation, more biodiversity. There are many benefits to what we call process-based restoration.

LA: On the other hand, Colorado has recently taken a position that those things, that slow water also consume water through evaporative loss or may have an adverse effect on a downstream irrigator's water use, which it can have. And so now there's a state policy discussion and some legislation around how can we allow people to do these important watershed restoration projects without impacting other people's water rights? And that's a place where it's so important for landowners to be at the table. Talking to one another, understanding this and working this out together so that we can get to the right place.

JO: And is the best way to get the landowners at the table? Is it kinda like my business where it's word of mouth, or are you specifically targeting certain landowners in the west to join your organization? Or can you kind of talk about that process? 

LA: Sure, absolutely. So membership in WA is free. We of course, ask people to, support us financially as they're able, but it is free to join and be a part of this. We send out regular newsletters and announcements about things that are happening. So for example, we anticipate hosting some dialogues here in the next six months on this watershed restoration question in Colorado. And we'll be reaching out to our membership and to our networks of partners to say, Hey, let's find the right landowners to come sit down together, willing to talk this through and bring those diverse perspectives to the table in a thoughtful way.

LA: Because we're not about shouting and throwing things at one another or at, other stakeholders. We're there to try to solve problems, and work these things out as collaboratively as we can. It's not always possible, but that's our goal. And so we'll put the word out that those things are happening. We'll also notify people that there's legislation coming up that they may wanna comment on, participate in some way. And then we do have advisories and working groups as well that people can join.

JO: Okay, great. Well, thank you for explaining that.

LA: Yeah.

JO: Lesli, kind of wrapping up here, anything else that you wanna make sure the listeners are aware of when it comes to Western Land Alliance and what y'all are working on? 

LA: Yeah, I think one of the things I close out on is saying that we're really entering what we feel is a new and very exciting era of conservation. In the past, people mostly think about conservation on public lands. Wilderness areas, Yellowstone National Parks and things like that. But really, people settled the west in, and when they did, they settled the most fertile valley bottoms, the places with the most water and wildlife that were habitable year round, which means that the most biologically diverse areas, the most important areas for carbon sequestration, for food production really are concentrated on private and working lands.

LA: And those are the lands that are disappearing. Those are the ones we're losing to development. And when we do, if that's not done thoughtfully. 'Cause yeah, we've gotta grow in some places, but if we don't do this more thoughtfully, we're losing the resources that we all need for our survival.

LA: And so in the coming era, we will see conservation focus on private and working lands. And what's different about that is that now you have to engage people, you have to think about economics. We're talking not about separating people from nature, but integrating people better with nature so that we can produce food and support those other resource values that we all care about. That is the new era of conservation, we think is very exciting. It's more collaborative is solutions-oriented. And hopefully it gets us away from some of the trench warfare that we've been experiencing.

LA: And what we wanna invite is the broader public as well as the landowner community to participate in that by starting to bridge the rural urban divide, as we call it. Let's get together and learn from one another and build those relationships back, and, and work in a more collaborative manner. Because it's gonna take all of us getting on board to find solutions to the really big challenges the West is facing today.

JO: Yeah, we definitely gotta work together at it. And I love the way you said it. I may butcher it, but I think it was integrating people with nature, that just hits really close to home here in the west, where we've got animals just right out our back door.

LA: We do, we do. And they're important to us. And we can be really positive for them as well. We can actually enhance landscapes. We have the capacity to restore, regenerate, revitalize, enhance the lands that we work on. That's something really cool about people. And, I think if we focus on that and what we can do together, I think that's our path out of some of the challenges we face today.

JO: Well, folks, you can learn more about Western Land Alliance and the work they're doing to keep our lands healthy, productive, and economically vital at their website, westernlandowners.org Lesli, thank you for joining us today. Our members at the Realtors Land Institute share your same commitment to protect our farms, our ranches, and our forest properties, other working lands to preserve private land ownership. We appreciate the work your group is doing to maintain this way of life.

LA: Thank you so much again. Thanks for having me today.

JO: Yeah, thanks for joining us and for more expertise on land real estate topics, be sure to check out our RLI blog, follow us on social media, and of course, tune in for upcoming episodes of the Voices of Land Podcast.

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