White Paper: Options for Managing the Land Protection Component of the PRRIP

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Land Entity White Paper November 30, 1999 results of monitoring, peer review and land management programs. The LOC would make decisions or recommendations to the Governing Committee for approval, depending on the amount of discretion in the LOC's charter. Under normal circumstances, most recommendations of the LOC would be approved, with only major issues or those on which consensus is not possible actively reviewed by the Governance Committee. The Governance Committee would appoint LOC members. Membership and the appointment process would need to be agreed upon to assure appropriate representation of Governance Committee members and key constituencies important to the success of the land protection program. The LOC, itself or through contractors, would negotiate deals, carry out transactions, develop detailed restoration and management plans for individual parcels, modify them consistent with adaptive management results, coordinate activities among Program lands, coordinate activities with neighbors, and implement restoration and management plans. The LOC would not be a legal entity and could not hold interests in land. Funding would also need to pass through a legal entity, as it did during the Cooperative Agreement through the signatories' contracts with the Program's Executive Director and the Nebraska Communities Foundation. Thus, a Land Entity or land entities would be needed in addition to an LOC to implement the complete land component of the Program. A Land Entity or Entities under the oversight of an LOC could be given a range of responsibilities. On one hand, the LOC could oversee a contract with a single Land Entity to carry out most of the land component's implementation functions, including authority over day -to -day implementation decisions, very similar to the Land Entity's responsibilities in Option 2. This option might work very like 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 spectrum, the 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 or contractors to hold 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 following pages show two alternative ways that Option 3 can be implemented. Advantages • Significant decisions are in the hands of a body very close to the signatories who provide the money, so more likely to pass muster on accountability. • The LOC has the membership and presence, as well as the scope and flexibility, to coordinate implementation throughout Program habitat areas. 16