Adoption Rates. Adoption rates, for the purposes of this Agreement, are the percent of enrolled lands in which Partners apply conservation measures to enhance, restore, and maintain monarch butterfly habitat annually. Although Partners are encouraged to apply conservation measures throughout enrolled lands, the adoption rate is the minimum number of acres that must provide monarch habitat in order to participate in the Agreement. These adoption rates were developed with consideration of a combination of the rates presented in “All Hands on Deck” (AHOD, Xxxxxxxxxx et al. 2017) as well as industry-elicited adoption rates developed in conjunction with, and for the purpose of establishing conservation goals for, the Agreement. Xxxxxxxxxx et al. (2017) developed conservation adoption rates targeting sufficient numbers of milkweed stems to support monarch conservation goals across a range of land use sectors. Several rates were developed for sector-specific rights-of-way and considered the likelihood of conservation success due to biological factors, and the feasibility/practicality of sectors implementing the management actions. Adoption rates within Xxxxxxxxxx et al. (2017) generally range from 5 to 20 percent depending on the land use or sector type. Similarly, the MAMCS also identifies adoption rates for land use sectors based on targets for conservation need. For rights-of-way sectors, the MAMCS adoption rates generally range from 2 to 25 percent across energy and transportation lands, although some high-end estimates of adoption rates were assumed to be as much as 50 percent (MAFWA 2018). The MAMCS defines their “adoption rates” as the percent of each land cover type that might implement practices that would result in improved milkweed stem density. Within this Agreement, adoption rates define the net conservation benefit expected from Partners in each participating sector. For the purpose of this Agreement, we consider the adoption rates to represent the minimum percentage of total enrolled lands on which conservation measures are annually implemented to create, enhance, restore, sustain, or maintain habitat for monarchs. The habitat on adopted acres support either breeding habitat (e.g. areas containing milkweed) or foraging habitat (e.g. areas with nectaring plants). The net conservation benefit resulting from this Agreement is the on-the-ground conservation of the Partners adopted acres maintaining a network of monarch habitat across both non-Federal and Federal lands...
