Agreement Penned to Protect Grassland Birds and Ranching

The Nature Conservancy and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have finalized their first landowner agreement aimed at protecting habitat for greater sage-grouse and other declining grassland birds. With Candidate Conservation Agreements with Assurances (CCAAs), landowners commit to practices that avoid or remove threats to the habitat of certain designated species. In exchange, landowners are not subject to additional limits on their ranching land, water or resources should one of these species be listed as endangered.

This first CCAA in the region covers an 11,000-acre ranch near Malta. The prope...