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State conservation stewardship office describes monitoring role, endowment funding
Summary
A staff member for New Hampshire's Conservation Land Stewardship Program told the House appropriations panel the office monitors conservation easements, relies on an endowment and Fish & Game transfers for funding, and seeks staffing and a vehicle to keep up with field work.
Charlotte Harding, who identified herself as representing the Conservation Land Stewardship (CLS) program, told the House appropriations committee the program's primary role is to monitor and steward conservation easements held by private landowners and partner agencies.
Harding said CLS focuses on "maintain[ing] relationships with the landowners" and annual monitoring to check for encroachments and incompatible uses, such as motorized or non-passive recreation on easement-protected parcels. "We monitor the properties every year for incompatible uses that are not allowed by those conservation easement deeds," she said.
The program operates with two full-time positions and a seasonal employee, Harding said. CLS draws on two funding sources: an endowment held at the state treasury, administered by the Council on Resources and Development (referred to in testimony as the Land Conservation Endowment), and transfers from other agencies such as Fish and Game to cover monitoring costs for easements not held in the endowment.
Harding told representatives the endowment was created by statute (she cited RSA 162-C:8 in testimony) and that partners contributing new easements typically make a stewardship contribution sized by a "stewardship calculator" that estimates 10 years of monitoring needs. She said the Treasury advised budgeting to withdraw no more than 4.5% of endowment investment income per year.
Members questioned staffing and equipment: Harding said she had been covering the director's duties after a recent retirement and described running the office with one full-time person as "possible but not ideal." She also said field travel increased after the program lost access to a functioning state vehicle and that the office has been reimbursing in-state travel by mileage for staff using personal cars. "The vehicle is no longer functional," Harding said, adding the program listed a replacement vehicle among prioritized needs for the next biennium.
Committee members pressed on enforcement and operations. Harding said CLS itself has no enforcement authority and refers violations to the grantee agency that holds the easement; if the grantee lacks capacity, enforcement can be escalated to the Council on Resources and Development. She described a range of issues staff encounter, from minor boundary encroachments to painful cases such as unauthorized subdivision or structures that violate deed purposes.
On the endowment's history and recent balance, Harding said she could not explain an apparent 2022 reduction of about $1 million and offered to follow up. She also told the committee that stewardship has become a higher priority in the land protection community because protecting land in perpetuity requires ongoing effort and funding.
Harding said the program aims to resolve minor problems at the landowner level to conserve grantee resources, noting that grantee agencies often lack bandwidth for rapid enforcement responses.
Harding closed by stressing the program's preventive, relationship-based approach: "The best way to avoid issues is to maintain a positive landowner relationship."
