Lessons Learned: Habitat Compensation Program Challenges

HBCF recently decided to terminate our habitat compensation program. We want to share the reasons why, because we believe that we learn as much (or more) from ‘failures’ as we do from our successes.

Ultimately, we struggled with two main issues:

We struggled to find applicants that fit within the program criteria.

The program was limited to just two states, and in about two years we received a total of only four applications. We advertised the program on the HBCF website and shared details about the program with our regional colleagues in beaver-adjacent fields, encouraging them to refer landowners to the program. Paid, targeted social media ads resulted in a lot of negative comments and only one application.

We struggled to find applicants that fit within the budget.

All four applicants estimated wetlands so large it would have wiped out our entire budget for the pilot program. This might suggest that a bigger budget alone is an obvious solution; however, in multiple cases, the beavers had already been living on applicants’ properties for many years, calling into question whether a financial incentive is the right approach at all.

Lessons learned

To others interested in applying this approach to beaver coexistence and restoration, we suggest the following:

• Specify that beavers are somehow defined as ‘newly arrived’ on the property, OR that repeated lethal trapping has occurred as a past management strategy.
• Ensure that landowners can demonstrate financial need in terms of income lost because of acreage converted into wetlands that would otherwise have economic value.
• Indicate a maximum amount allowable per lease dependent on project budget.

Broader questions to consider:

• Would this program be more successful elsewhere, with different cultural perceptions of beavers resulting in a higher receptivity to the concept?
• Will funding be available and sustainable long-term if deemed successful?
• How/can outreach opportunities be used to engage landowners toward the eventual goal of valuing beaver-created habitat for other reasons (recreation, biodiversity, water storage, etc.)? The longer-term goal would be to eliminate the need for a financial incentive to coexist.

Thanks to the flexibility of the donor, the funds for this project have been reallocated to provide scholarships for BeaverCorps students in our region.

We hope that other organizations experimenting with similar approaches will find these insights useful!