Posted on 04/05/2003 1:29:14 PM PST by farmfriend
Comprehensive Agricultural Land Conservation Conference to Be Held April 16 in Tempe
Media and Public Invited
Phoenix, Arizona — Agricultural land conservation funding, laws and strategies will be the topic of the "Farm and Ranchland Protection Conference," to be held on April 16 from 9 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. at Harkins Theatres at Arizona Mills Shopping Center in Tempe.
The conference is designed to inform landowners, government officials and other interested citizens about laws governing agricultural land conservation, how to create a conservation easement, how to pay for the purchase of agricultural land for conservation, the relationship between agricultural land conservation and water rights, provisions of the federal Farmland Protection Program, and Arizona State law relevant to the purchase of development rights.
Although not related to the topic of conservation easements, a special session has been added to the conference agenda to provide information about a recent proposal to Congress that would allow the federal government to buy federal grazing allotments in Arizona from federal lessees. The proposal calls for a one-time buyout of the grazing allotments in an attempt to compensate ranchers for their grazing rights and retire federal land from grazing. During this session, one of the proposal’s advocates, Sunflower rancher John Whitney, will debate a fellow member of the Arizona Cattlemen’s Association.
Among the other conference speakers will be Mike Somerville, Arizona State Conservationist from the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS); Doug Lawrence from the NRCS Farmland Protection and Community Planning Division in Washington, D.C.; Lori Faeth, policy advisor to Governor Janet Napolitano; Sid Goodloe, president of Southeast Rockies Agricultural Land Trust; and Peter Ives, general counsel for the Southwest Regional Office of the Trust for Public Land.
There also will be a panel discussion featuring representatives of the agricultural community who are engaged in developing conservation easements on their property, including Billy Cordasco of Babbitt Ranches in Coconino County; Peter Warren of The Nature Conservancy and its coordinator for the Malpai Borderlands Group in southeastern Arizona; and Sarah Young Teskey of Young’s Farm in Dewey, Arizona.
The conference is sponsored by a diverse coalition of organizations interested in agricultural lands, including: Agri-Business Council of Arizona; Arizona Association of Conservation Districts; Arizona Cattle Grower’s Association; Arizona Department of Agriculture; Arizona Farm Bureau; the Natural Resources Conservation Service; The Nature Conservancy; the Trust for Public Land; and the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension Service.
The conference is open to the public on a first-come-first-served basis, and seating is limited to approximately 175. Registration costs $10. To register for the conference, please contact Mac Herrera, Executive Director of the Arizona Association of Conservation Districts (AACD) at (602) 280-8803 or fax him at (602) 280-8779 or email him at aacd@az.usda.gov.
Click to view the conference agenda.
Harkins Theaters are located in the northwest corner of the Arizona Mills Shopping Center. The Arizona Mills Shopping Center is located in the southeast quadrant of the intersection of Interstate 10 and U.S. 60 in Tempe.
The Nature Conservancy is a leading international, nonprofit organization that preserves plants, animals and natural communities representing the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 14 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 83 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific.
The Trust for Public Land conserves land for people to improve the quality of life in our communities and to protect our natural resources for future generations.
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