White Paper: Option for Land Protection Component

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Land Entiry White Paper November 30, 1999 results of monitoring, peer review and land management programs. The LOC would make decisions or recommendatians to the Governing Committee for approval, depending on the amount of discretion in the LOC's charter. Under normal circumstances, most recommendations of the LQC would be approved, with only major issues or those on which consensus is not passible actively reviewed by the Govemance Committee. The Govemance Committee would appoint LOC members. Membership and the appointrnent process wvuld need to be agreed upon to assure appropriate representation of Govemance Committee members and key constituencies impartant ta the success of the land pratection program. The LOC, itself or through contractors, would negotiate deals, carry out transactians, develop detailed restaration and management plans for individual parcets, modify them consistent with adaptive management results, coordinate activities among Program lands, cvordinate activities with neighbors, and implement restoration and management plans. The LOC would not be a legal entity and could nat hold interests in Iand. Funding would also need to pass through a legaI entity, as it did during the Cooperative Agreement through the signatories' contracts with the Program's Executive Director and the Nebraska Communities Founciation. Thus, a Land Entity ar land entities would be needed in addiiion to att L4C to implement the complete land component of the Pragram. A Land Entity or Entities under the oversight of an LOC could be given a range of responsibilities. On one hand, the LOC cauld oversee a contract with a single Land Entity to carry out most of the land camponent's implementation functions, including autharity over day-to-day implementatian decisions, very similar to the Land Entity's responsibilities in Option 2. This option might work very Iike Option 1, with the LOC acting as if it were the Board of Directors of an Option 1-type Land Entity, and the Option 3-type Land Entity acting as if it were the Board's staff. At the other end of the speetrum, tne Governance Committee could use the LOC to carry out or very closely supervise planning and implementation matters, using an entity to handle funds, and a group of Land Entities ar contractors to hald interests in Program lands and to carry out individual, non-discretionary tasks. The greater the share of the implementation work retained by the LOC, the greater the likelihood that the LOC will need a staff, either paid or volunteered by Program participants from their own staffs. If the LOC's staff were paid, this would simply be a variation on the contractor/Land Entity model. Figures 3A and 3B on the follawing pages show two aiternative ways that Option 3 can be implemented. Advantages • Significant decisians are in the hands of a body very close to the signatories who provide the money, so more likely to pass muster on accauntability, • The LOC has the rnembership and presence, as well as the scape and flexibility, to coordinate implementation throughout Pragram habitat areas. 16