Required Conservation Period. Each Certificate of Inclusion issued by the Department to a Cooperator must specify the time period during which the conservation measures identified in the Agreement will be maintained or implemented. This is termed the “required conservation period” and shall be agreed to by the Department and Cooperator. A minimum of a 10-year commitment is required under this Agreement, but longer periods are allowable and are encouraged. The conservation period agreed to within individual Certificates of Inclusion will depend on several circumstances including whether or not the landowner has any future land use plans, whether or not conservation measures under the Agreement have included a material benefit to the landowner, and the landowner’s comfort level. Any required conservation period in excess of 10 years must have the consent of the Cooperator, however, and the specific conservation period agreed to must be specified within the Landowner’s Certificate of Inclusion (Appendix 2). In certain situations, a 10-year commitment may not be practicable, and three-year commitments will be granted on a case-by-case basis. Such instances would include manmade habitats that are anticipated to be relatively temporary and require ongoing management to maintain. The conservation commitments required under this Agreement include:
Required Conservation Period. Each Certificate of Inclusion issued by the Department to a Participating Landowner must specify the time period (10 years minimum) during which the Chiricahua leopard frog conservation measures identified in the Agreement will be maintained or implemented. This is termed the “required conservation period.” The required conservation period is considered the minimum that a landowner must implement in order to obtain the program’s regulatory assurances. The assurances will run for two years past the required conservation period, but can not be given past the term of the section 10(a)(1)(A) permit (section 2.9 and 3.6). However, the Department and the USFWS anticipate most Participating Landowners will continue to implement most or all of the Agreement’s conservation commitments even after the required conservation period has been satisfied. This is in large part because the Agreement’s conservation program was specifically designed to be compatible with cattle ranching. Thus, in most cases, Participating Landowners are expected to have little incentive or need to discontinue their commitments. Nevertheless, Participating Landowners may, if necessary, terminate their conservation commitments under the Agreement at the end of the required conservation period and may even terminate or reduce their conservation commitments prior to the end of the required conservation period, under circumstances beyond their control, through the “early termination of conservation commitments” procedures described in Section 3.3 of the Agreement. A minimum of a 10-year commitment is required under this Agreement, but longer periods are allowable and are encouraged. The conservation period actually agreed to within individual Certificates of Inclusion will depend on several circumstances—including whether or not the landowner has any future land-use plans, whether or not conservation measures under the Agreement have included a material benefit to the landowner (e.g., all or partial funding of a well, in which case a longer conservation period would be appropriate), and the landowner’s comfort level. Any required conservation period in excess of 10 years must have the consent of the Participating Landowner, and the specific conservation period agreed to must be specified within the Landowner’s Certificate of Inclusion (i.e., Line F in Appendix A).
