An interdisciplinary assessment of private conservation areas in the Western United States

Abstract

Conservation easements are the fastest growing private conservation strategy in the United States. However, mechanisms to assess private land conservation as well as their support by the general public are not well understood. This study uses the ecosystem services framework for assessing existing private lands in Idaho and identifies areas for future conservation easements. Using conservation targets of the land trust as a guide for selecting ecosystem services, we (a) mapped the spatial delivery of conservation targets across public and private lands, (b) explored public awareness in terms of social importance and vulnerability, and (c) mapped future priority areas by characterizing conservation bundles. We found that public lands provided the highest levels of conservation targets, and we found no difference in conservation target provision between private areas and conservation easements. The spatial characterization of conservation target bundles identified potential future priority areas for conservation easements, which can guide planning of land trust conservation efforts.

Full text

RESEARCH ARTICLE
An interdisciplinary assessment of private conservation areas
in the Western United States
Cristina Quintas-Soriano , Dainee M. Gibson, Jodi S. Brandt,
Marı
´aD.Lo
´pez-Rodrı
´guez, Javier Cabello, Pedro A. Aguilera,
Antonio J. Castro
Received: 25 August 2019 / Revised: 28 December 2019 / Accepted: 30 January 2020
Abstract Conservation easements are the fastest growing
private conservation strategy in the United States.
However, mechanisms to assess private land conservation
as well as their support by the general public are not well
understood. This study uses the ecosystem services
framework for assessing existing private lands in Idaho
and identifies areas for future conservation easements.
Using conservation targets of the land trust as a guide for
selecting ecosystem services, we (a) mapped the spatial
delivery of conservation targets across public and private
lands, (b) explored public awareness in terms of social
importance and vulnerability, and (c) mapped future
priority areas by characterizing conservation bundles. We
found that public lands provided the highest levels of
conservation targets, and we found no difference in
conservation target provision between private areas and
conservation easements. The spatial characterization of
conservation target bundles identified potential future
priority areas for conservation easements, which can
guide planning of land trust conservation efforts.
Keywords Conservation bundles Ecosystem services 
Private lands Protected areas Social-ecological systems 
Transdisciplinary science
INTRODUCTION
The Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD 1992) urges
to establish a system of protected areas for the in situ
preservation of global biodiversity and maintenance of
ecosystem services (ES, defined as the benefits that humans
obtain from ecosystems; MEA 2005). Consequently, there
is a political goal to integrate 17% of the land surface into a
global protected area network by 2020 (CBD 2010). Due to
limited resources availability for establishing new pro-
tected areas, countries are required to design and imple-
ment complementary area-based conservation policies
(CBD 2010). In this sense, governments are encouraged to
cooperate with private initiatives in developing methods
for promoting conservation strategies in collaboration with
local agencies and NGOs.
In recent decades, the implementation of conservation
strategies on private lands, hereafter private conservation
areas (Pasquini et al. 2010), is increasingly being recog-
nized as a strategy to complement current protected areas
networks (Cortes-Campano et al. 2019). Currently, private
conservation areas protect several million hectares of nat-
ural habitat and cultural landscapes across the world (e.g.,
Jones et al. 2005; Sims-Castley et al. 2005). These new
private conservation efforts are commonly implemented by
practitioners as a strategy to deliver benefits to society that
contribute to social-welfare goals, for instance, through job
creation where the land is managed for recreational activ-
ities and other profitable business (Chacon 2005; Rambaldi
et al. 2005). However, despite the interest of many coun-
tries to develop new conservation initiatives, the contri-
bution of these areas to the preservation of biodiversity and
ES is difficult to assess. Hence, new methodological
approaches are required to further understand the contri-
bution of these spaces to global conservation targets
(Merenlender et al. 2004; Pasquini et al. 2010).
In the United States (U.S.), conservation easements
stand out as the fastest growing private conservation
strategy (Dayer et al. 2016). Conservation easements are
legally binding, voluntary conservation agreements on
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this
article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-020-01323-x) contains sup-
plementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-020-01323-x

private lands that do not transfer ownership of the land, but
define limitations to future development or management
rights (Rissman 2013; Quinn and Wood 2017). The
majority of conservation easements are promoted by local
and state land trusts, which are non-governmental organi-
zations that conserve land by negotiating and/or purchasing
land in order to preserve it for natural, historical, personal,
or economic values (Stolton et al. 2014; Peters et al. 2017).
Over the last 30 years, the number of conservation ease-
ments on private land in the United States has increased
exponentially in order to protect natural and agricultural
resources (Merelinder et al. 2004; Stolton et al. 2014).
Currently, over 1700 land trusts are conserving more than
19 million hectares in the U.S. (Peters et al. 2017).
Since land trusts are generally small organizations that
act independently, each land trust and individual conser-
vation easement has its own conservation targets. For
example, different easements in Virginia and North Car-
olina have different management priorities when it comes
to bird watching and water purification (Villamagna et al.
2015). In the western U.S., public protected areas protect
more land than private protected areas, but private land
conservation via conservation easements has become a
popular alternative to underfunded and controversial public
acquisition techniques (Brunson and Huntsinger 2008).
Especially as large tracts of public protected areas have
been downgraded or sold, the value of conservation ease-
ments has become more visible in the region (Defries et al.
2007; Villamagna et al. 2015). These conservation ease-
ments have emerged as a means to save traditional ranch-
ing culture, protect the landscape from exurban
subdivisions, preserve open space, safeguard rangeland
ecosystems, and maintain the cultural heritage of ranching
(Brunson and Huntsinger 2008). Therefore, conservation
easements protect valuable benefits of the landscape while
allowing traditional use of the land. Under the law, con-
servation easements protect the land in perpetuity. To
ensure that the legal framework for land conservation will
endure, all land trusts are committed to building strong
public support for land conservation (Stolton et al. 2014).
Furthermore, despite the increase in conservation ease-
ments in land conservation, the public remains largely
unaware of this private land approach to conservation
(Villamagna et al. 2017). Implementing on-the-ground
conservation actions on private land mostly depends on
landowners’ willingness to collaborate with conservation
agencies and their management capabilities (Bastian et al.
2017; Vizek and Nielsen-Pincus 2017; Cortes-Campano
et al. 2019).
The ES framework provides several tools that can be
used to advance in the assessment of private conservation
areas. For instance, the bundle analyses distinguish groups
of ES (i.e., conservation targets) that are produced on the
landscape with similar provision levels, and the different
bundles can characterize the range of opportunities for
future conservation areas (Raudsepp-Hearne et al. 2010;
Queiroz et al. 2015; Quintas-Soriano et al. 2019). However,
the major challenge for operationalizing ES bundle anal-
yses is to integrate public perceptions and preferences with
conservation goals. Here, we propose an interdisciplinary
methodological approach for assessing existing conserva-
tion easements of a regional land trust in Idaho, U.S. First,
we quantify and map the spatial provision of the five
conservation targets and compare across public protected
areas, private lands, and existing conservation easements.
Second, we explore public perceptions regarding conser-
vation targets in terms of social importance and vulnera-
bility. Third, we identify additional private areas where
conservation targets are preserved and socially supported.
Finally, we discuss the potential for these areas to be
declared as future private conservation areas, and the
implications of this approach for conservation in other
regions.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Study area: The Portneuf River watershed
and the Sagebrush Steppe Land Trust
The Portneuf River watershed is located in SE Idaho, U.S.
(Fig. 1a). This region has a semi-arid climate of hot and dry
summers and moderately long winters. Rangeland covers
about 55.6% of the total watershed, cropland covers
approximately 22.3%, forest consists of approximately
17% of the watershed area in higher elevations, and urban
areas consist of 4.2%. The urban land and crop agriculture
is located in the lower, flat elevations in the watershed,
while the grazing occurs in mid to high elevations, along
with some in the flat valleys in the watershed (Fig. 1b).
About 34% of the land in the Portneuf watershed is con-
tained within protected areas, with the majority being in
public protected areas (13% managed by the Bureau of
Land Management (BLM) and 21% by the U.S. Forest
Service (USFS) (Fig. 1b). Private lands (65% of the study
area) are destinated to agricultural lands, farming activities,
farm-related businesses, and agricultural uses in the com-
munity (Fig. 1b).
The Sagebrush Steppe Land Trust is the local land trust
whose service area includes the Portneuf Valley (Fig. 1b).
Currently 0.69% of the Portneuf River watershed is pro-
tected through conservation easements, and the Sagebrush
Steppe Land Trust is currently prioritizing the creation of
new conservation easements in the valley. This corre-
sponds with the two conservation easements that are in the
study area that cover approximately 600 hectares.
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Quantifying and mapping provision of conservation
targets
Our methodological approach is based on the correspon-
dence between conservation targets and ES. Thus, the
Sagebrush Steppe Land Trust conservation targets were
translated into ES (Table 1). The five conservation targets
maps were created on a 30 930 m grid (Appendix S1).
Due to the fact that the average conservation easement size
in the Portneuf watershed corresponds approximately to
1km
2
, to preserve heterogeneity in the data while main-
taining a dataset that was manageable for computation, we
scaled up the resolution to a 1 91 km grid. Then, to
compare all conservation targets, we standardized them
using the raster calculator in ArcMap 10.5. We used min-
imum–maximum normalization to standardize the conser-
vation target on a 0 to 1 scale following Castro et al.
(2015). Because this normalization technique is sensitive to
outlier, minimum, and maximum values, the values within
the conservation target maps that occur outside the 5th or
95th percentile were assigned the 5th or 95th value,
respectively (Castro et al. 2015). Then, we combined and
normalized all conservation targets to represent areas with
the highest and lowest levels of all conservation targets’
provision in a single area. Finally, we compared conser-
vation target provision within the public protected areas,
private lands, and existing land trust conservation ease-
ments and explored differences using a non-parametric
Fig. 1 U.S. biomes map and location of Idaho state and the study area. Portneuf watershed in SE Idaho with elevation and social sampling
locations (a). Locations of Sagebrush Steppe Land Trust conservation easements, public protected areas (including Bureau of Land Management
and Forest Service lands), and private lands within the Portneuf watershed (b)
Table 1 Sagebrush Steppe Land Trust conservation target correspondence with ecosystem services, method of mapping, and social survey
wording. The land trust conservation target, ecosystem service, model or proxy for mapping, and way of wording the ecosystem service within
the social perception survey panel that provided ecosystem services, called ‘‘contributions from nature to people’’ for survey respondents
Land trust conservation target Ecosystem service Method of mapping Wording in social survey panel
Critical wildlife habitat Habitat quality InVEST habitat quality model ‘‘Habitat for species’’
Water quality Water quality EnviroAtlas total stream impairment length ‘‘Water Quality’’
Open space and scenic views Scenic quality InVEST scenic quality model Not included
Recognized historic and cultural value Cultural heritage Historic land-use trends weighted by survey data ‘‘Cultural heritage’’
Recreational Access Recreation Density of trails ‘‘Recreation/ecotourism’’
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Mann–Whitney U test. All of the statistical analyses were
performed using R 3.3.1 (R Core Team).
Public awareness regarding conservation targets
Questionnaire design and social sampling strategy
In the summer of 2016, we conducted a social sampling
using face-to-face questionnaires in the Portneuf water-
shed. Overall, 471 valid surveys were completed (Table 2;
Appendix S2). Sampling occurred at 30 distinct locations
in the Portneuf Valley (Fig. 1a), with a focused effort on
populated and tourist areas within the study site. The
population sampled was a convenience sample (Quintas-
Soriano et al. 2018; Narducci et al. 2019). The question-
naires collected information regarding local perceptions
towards ES, perceived impact of land use/land cover on
local ES, and sociodemographic information (see Appen-
dix S2).
Social perceptions of conservation targets
Social perceptions of local respondents were explored to
evaluate public awareness of conservation targets. We
began with a free-listing technique in which respondents
were asked to name all of the possible benefits they could
think of that the ecosystems in the study area provide
(Quintas-Soriano et al. 2018). Those examples provided
were coded into ES following the international ES classi-
fication of CICES (www.cices.eu; Haines-Young and
Postchin 2013). Ambiguous responses and those that could
not be categorized into any ES were excluded. Following
Martı
´n-Lo
´pez et al. (2012), we developed initial categories
for each example of a benefit from the watershed. Then, we
grouped similar responses of a given category into groups
that corresponded to an established ES. We then estimated
the percentage of respondents in each location who listed
specific services. From this grouping, we estimated dif-
ference in public awareness for conservation targets using a
v
2
test in R 3.3.1 (R Core Team).
To assess conservation target vulnerability, we com-
pared the trend that survey respondents believed that con-
servation targets underwent in the last 10 years (Quintas-
Soriano et al. 2014,2016; Castro et al. 2016). The con-
servation targets on the ES panel included cultural heritage,
habitat quality, recreation, and water quality (Appendix
S3). Scenic quality was not included in our ES panel, so
our analysis of vulnerability could not include this goal. All
survey respondents were asked to indicate the perceived
trend (i.e., decreasing, stable, or increasing) of ES over the
past 10 years. We then estimated the percentage of
respondents who listed vulnerability types for specific
services and we analyzed the differences in service vul-
nerability perceptions between the four conservation tar-
gets using a v
2
test in R 3.3.1 (R Core Team).
Characterizing and mapping alternative private
areas for conservation
All conservation target maps were standardized from 0 to 1
and established with a resolution of 5 95 km grids to be
applicable for land trust management (Appendix S1). Then
we created maps of the residuals from the average con-
servation target provision in the watershed (Quintas-Sori-
ano et al. 2019). These residuals represent ‘‘hot’’ (higher
Table 2 Sociodemographic characterization of the Portneuf River
Watershed social sample
Categories % of respondents
Gender
Female 45
Male 55
Age
\25 years 23
25–39 years 32
40–54 years 19
[55 years 25
Income
\$19 999 14
$20 000–$39 999 14
$40 000–$59 999 15
$60 000–$79 999 10
[$80 000 19
Educational level
Less than high school 2
High school degree 14
University/college 82
Sense of place
City/county 6
Southeastern Idaho 30
Idaho 23
Western USA 21
USA 6
Ethnic background
White 70
Black, African-American 8
Native-American 3
Asian American 2
Latino or Hispanic 10
Multi-racial 1
Other 4
Membership in an environmental association
Yes 9
No 91
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provision) and ‘‘cold’’ (lower provision) spots of 5 95km
areas (Queiroz et al. 2015).
Conservation target bundles are here defined as portions
of private lands where multiple conservation targets are
simultaneously provided. Since the land trust only works
with private landowners to create conservation easements,
we limited our analysis of private conservation areas to
private lands in the Portneuf watershed (Fig. 1b). We used
cluster analysis to identify 5 95 km areas in private land
with similar provision levels of conservation targets
(Quintas-Soriano et al. 2019). K-means clustering was used
to identify five distinct conservation target bundles in the
Portneuf watershed. The selection of the number of clusters
was based on cluster robustness and knowledge of the area
(Raudsepp-Hearne et al. 2010; Queiroz et al. 2015). We
used flower diagrams to visualize conservation target
bundles. These bundles were calculated from the normal-
ized values of each conservation target map, and the size of
the flower petals represents conservation target provision.
Each conservation target bundle represents a different
opportunity for future private conservation areas because
they provide the goals of the land trust in different quan-
tities. In addition, interactions among conservation targets
were analyzed using a principal component analysis (PCA)
(Queiroz et al. 2015). PCA identified the main explanatory
factors of the variability and distribution of the conserva-
tion targets across the watershed. We used QGIS 2.12.1 to
map the spatial distribution of conservation targets and R to
conduct all spatial analysis and produce all the figures (R
Core Team 2018).
RESULTS
Conservation target provision in the Portneuf River
watershed
The spatial distribution of the conservation target provision
varied throughout the Portneuf watershed (Fig. 2; Appen-
dix S1). Cultural heritage was highest in the southern and
eastern parts of the watershed. The lowest provision of
cultural heritage occurred in the central and northwestern
regions of the watershed corresponding with areas with
influence from urban and exurban land uses, as well as in
higher elevation regions in the watershed (Fig. 2a). High
values of cultural heritage were mostly concentrated in
agricultural and rangeland areas, which are dominated by
agricultural production, grazing, and sagebrush-steppe
vegetation. Values of cultural heritage tend to occur in
mostly flat areas of lower elevation, as this conservation
target is tied closely with the crop and cattle agriculture
that occurs in these areas.
Highest values of habitat quality were found in public
lands dominated by natural forests and rangeland (Fig. 2b).
These areas are in higher elevation, most often located in
the public lands of the watershed. Vegetation is marked by
sagebrush-steppe species and conifer forests. The major
areas of low habitat quality included the urban center of
Pocatello in the northwestern corner of the watershed, the
southern agricultural valley, and the eastern agricultural
valley in the Portneuf watershed. Low habitat quality
occurred in town and urban centers as well as in agricul-
tural lands. Therefore, lower elevation and flatter slopes
tended to have lower habitat quality in the Portneuf
watershed because this is where agricultural and urban
areas occur.
Trail density was mainly present in areas dominated by
sagebrush-steppe vegetation and conifer forests. The
southern part of the watershed tended to have lower trail
density, which is influenced by fewer large population
towns in this region than in the northern part of the
watershed (Figs. 1a, 2c).
Scenic quality was largely impacted by natural vegeta-
tion and altitude, including sagebrush-steppe species,
deciduous forests, and conifer forests. Locations in the
watershed that had views of these natural flora and the
mountains were marked by higher scenic quality, such as
the central ridgeline across the Portneuf watershed and the
higher elevations on the boundary of the watershed
(Figs. 1b, 2d). On the other hand, areas of higher elevation
that surround heavy industrial and agricultural land uses
had lowest scenic quality, which is best demonstrated
through the low scenic quality on the hills surrounding the
industrial railroad and phosphate mine in the northwestern-
most corner of the Portneuf watershed. Lower elevation
areas (less than 1600 m) that cannot view the heavy
anthropogenic land uses had medium levels of scenic
quality because the view of a positive or negative impact
on view influences the InVEST scenic quality model, as
demonstrated by central region of the watershed (Figs. 1a,
2d).
The distribution of water quality varied significantly in
the watershed (Fig. 2e). Highest values of water quality
were found in the northeastern third of the watershed where
the upper portion of the Portneuf River is located. Fur-
thermore, areas in the northeastern part of the watershed,
marked by higher elevation and sloping above the Portneuf
River, had high water quality. Conversely, regions domi-
nated by agricultural and urban land use, especially those
in the lower portion of the Portneuf River, tended to have
lower water quality (Fig. 2e). As more of the water from
the river is diverted for agricultural and urban uses, the
water quality decreased (Fig. 1a). These regions included
the urban center of Pocatello in the northwestern corner,
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the southern agricultural valley, and the eastern agricultural
valley in the Portneuf watershed. These regions are of
lower elevation (less than 1700 m) and are flatter, which
supports urban and agricultural land uses and allowed more
impairments to reach the water bodies in the region
(Figs. 1a, 2e). These impairments thus reduced water
quality because the relative amount of impaired stream
length increases in these lower quality regions.
The resulting map of all conservation targets showed
highest conservation target provision in the northeastern
portion of the watershed (Fig. 2f). The mid-level elevation
locations in and near public lands also had some of the
highest levels of all conservation target provision in the
Portneuf watershed. Urban and exurban areas had the
lowest levels of all conservation target provision (0.0–0.3;
Fig. 2f). The medium levels of all conservation target
provision (0.31–0.6) occurred in the agriculturally domi-
nated, flat valleys of the watershed (Figs. 1a, 2).
Public lands provided, on average, higher levels of
habitat quality, trail density, scenic quality, and water
quality than private lands (Fig. 3a). On the other hand,
private areas provided higher levels of cultural heritage
(0.73 ±0.006). Land trust conservation easements pro-
vided similar levels of conservation targets as the private
areas in the Portneuf watershed (Mann–Whitney Utest,
p[0.05, Fig. 3b).
Public awareness and perceived vulnerability
of conservation targets
We found significant differences between the public
awareness towards conservation targets (i.e., ES) in the
watershed (v
2
test, p[0.05, Fig. 4). Respondents recog-
nized as most important services freshwater provision,
followed by recreation, food from agriculture, fishing, and
existence values (Fig. 4). The most mentioned free-listed
services corresponded with four out of the five conserva-
tion targets. Recreation and scenic quality were the most
visible conservation targets, while water and habitat quality
Fig. 2 Conservation target standardized provision in the Portneuf River watershed and map of the combination of the five conservation targets.
Light blue indicates minimum provision while dark blue indicates maximum provision of each conservation goal
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have a lower visibility to respondents. Finally, cultural
heritage had low public awareness, with only two respon-
dents identifying cultural heritage as an unprompted benefit
from the Portneuf watershed.
We found differences in perceived vulnerability among
the four conservation targets (v
2
test, p\0.001, Fig. 5).
Water quality and habitat for species were most perceived
by the public as being in decline over the past 10 years.
Recreation was perceived as increasing in the Portneuf
watershed during the past 10 years. Finally, cultural her-
itage was perceived as being mostly stable, with some
perceptions of decline, over the past 10 years.
Identification of alternative private conservation
areas through hot and cold spots and bundles
of conservation targets
Within private land, the hot spots of conservation targets
occurred around the borders of public lands and in the
northern half of the watershed (Fig. 6a). The cold spots of
conservation targets occurred around the urban center of
the City of Pocatello in the northwest corner of the
watershed and in the agricultural centers in the east and
south of the watershed. Hot spots are areas with particu-
larly high provision of land trust conservation targets,
Fig. 3 Public land versus private land level of provision of conservation target (a) and land trust conservation easements versus private land
provision of conservation targets (b). Bars represent the average provision of that conservation goal for each area, while bars indicate the
standard error of the mean. Statistical significant differences (p\0.001) as determined by Mann–Whitney Utest between level of provision is
denoted by an asterisk (*)
Fig. 4 Perceived awareness of local ecosystem services. The public awareness of land trust conservation targets is indicated by a blue arrow
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while cold spots are areas where the provision of land trust
targets are particularly low.
The PCA analysis identified two gradients that
explained the variations of conservation targets across the
study area (Appendix S4). The first PCA component
explained 31% of the variance and corresponds to a gra-
dient of human impact and elevation. The second PCA
component, 23% of the variance, corresponds to a gradient
of population density. Cluster analysis defined five groups
of bundles of conservation targets within the private land of
the Portneuf watershed (Fig. 6b). The orange bundle
grouped high level of supply of scenic quality, habitat
quality, and cultural heritage. These areas occurred
between areas dominated by agricultural production and
the public lands in the Portneuf watershed and provided
lower levels of water quality and greatly reduced levels of
trail density. The yellow bundle corresponded with highest
levels of scenic quality, habitat quality, and water quality.
These areas occurred in agriculture-dominated areas on the
border of public protected areas and provided some cultural
heritage with greatly reduced levels of trail density. In the
green bundle, all conservation targets were provided in
high levels. This bundle occurred in areas with higher
elevation on the boundaries of public protected areas in the
Fig. 5 Perceived vulnerability by locals regarding land trust conservation targets
Fig. 6 Hot and cold spots and bundle analysis for conservation targets across the study area. aHot spots (represented by an increasing gradient
of red) are areas with particularly high provision of land trust conservation targets, while cold spots (represented by a decreasing gradient of blue)
are areas where the provision of land trust conservation targets is particularly low. bBundles of conservation targets identified by k-means
clustering for private land in the study area. The five groups of bundles (on the right side of the figure) are represented by rose-wind diagrams.
The color of the box around each rose-wind diagram corresponds with the area of the map that is the same color. The flower diagrams are
dimensionless, as they are based on normalized data for each service, and a higher surface area of a petal indicates the higher provision of a
particular conservation target
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Portneuf watershed. The pink bundle presented high levels
of scenic quality, water quality, and cultural heritage. This
bundle occurred in areas dominated by agricultural pro-
duction, which had the lowest levels of habitat quality and
trail density. Finally, the blue bundle corresponded with
highest provision of habitat quality and occurred along the
lower elevation boundaries of public lands. These locations
did provide some capacity to preserve water quality and
cultural heritage, with low levels of scenic quality and
greatly reduced levels of trail density.
DISCUSSION
This study implements a methodological approach to
assess conservation easements in order to better understand
the role of private land conservation strategies in the
Western U.S. While the assessment of the role of protected
areas to maintain well-being is commonly studied (Palomo
et al. 2013,2014), the role of conservation easements
remains less investigated (Villamagna et al. 2013,2015).
Our interdisciplinary method showed that the conservation
targets of the Sagebrush Steppe Land Trust are differently
distributed throughout the Portneuf watershed. The five
conservation goals showed different supply distribution
across the study area, although in specific regions of the
study area we found high patters of supply that allowed us
to identify future areas for conservation. Additionally, the
analysis of social importance shows that the public rec-
ognizes as important four of the five conservation targets,
which socially support the implementation of futures con-
servation easements. Finally, the bundle analysis identified
alternative areas (see Fig. 6b, green bundle) where all
conservation targets are preserved, which might guide
conservation efforts towards future private conservation
areas (Villamanga et al. 2013).
Because conservation easements are the fastest growing
private land conservation strategy in the U.S., our findings
have important policy implications to make operative the
ES approach in private conservation initiatives (Dayer
et al. 2016). Currently, over 19 million hectares of land is
under easement in the U.S. and millions of dollars annually
are invested in new easements (Peters et al. 2017; Quinn
and Wood 2017). However, mechanisms to assess conser-
vation easements are not well established. Our study
demonstrates that the application of ES can provide
insights for the interdisciplinary assessment land trust
conservation. Since land management policy in the U.S. is
strongly influenced by the opinion, preferences and
demands of the public, incorporating the opinion of local
residents result essential to promote a more cost-effective
and public-supported organization (Villamagna et al.
2013,2017; Palomo et al. 2014). Additionally, by
identifying spatially explicit bundles where multiple con-
servation targets occur, the land trust can target specific
parcels and private landowners where to prioritize con-
servation efforts. We suggest incorporating spatial priori-
tization information such as what we produced to the
network of landowners as a strategy to promote the goals
and mission of the land trust in the region (Villamagna
et al. 2015).
The private conservation areas identified in our analysis
should be interpreted within the context of the limitations
of our methodological approach. First, our approach differs
from more traditional, smaller-scale ecological studies in
that our study is a landscape scale, interdisciplinary
assessment of different conservation targets (i.e., ES), in
which we compare the potential capacity of different land
units to preserve conservation targets. We assumed lin-
earity between land trust conservation targets and the
model and proxies used to quantify the Portneuf land-
scapes’ capacity to deliver them, which is common in the
assessment of ES (Castro et al. 2013; Quintas-Soriano et al.
2014). For instance, we used trail density as a proxy to
evaluate recreation. This estimation could be more accurate
if we had more detailed information on the annual number
of visitors recreating on Portneuf trails, which would allow
us to accurately estimate the environmental pressure that
recreation places on public and private lands. Egoh et al.
(2012) reviewed this issue and stated that while provi-
sioning services can be directly quantified, most cultural
services are less straightforward, and researchers must rely
on indicators or proxy data for their quantification. Our
study advances this topic by using two new proxies for
mapping recreation and cultural heritage, two of the ser-
vices considered more difficult to quantify (Plieninger et al.
2013). Second, assessing the public awareness of conser-
vation targets through spatially explicit exercises is chal-
lenging (Brown and Kytta 2014). While our study does not
map social perceptions regarding conservation targets, our
social assessment is spatially explored across particular
landscapes (Fig. 1a), which may inform the Sagebrush
Steppe Land Trust on the degree of acceptance that local
communities may have for specific conservation targets.
Third, the spatial scale used in the bundle analysis of
conservation targets continues to be a subject of debate
(Spake et al. 2017) because there can be a loss of accuracy
as a result of the normalization and standardization of ES
maps (Quintas-Soriano et al. 2019). Most ES bundle
studies have used the municipality level, with the justifi-
cation being that it is the smallest administrative scale that
decisions are made (see for example Raudsepp-Hearne
et al. 2010; Renard et al. 2015), and thus this scale enables
connection with land managers and decision makers
(Queiroz et al. 2015). In addition, while a larger scale
might facilitate the visualization of the ES bundles, there
ÓThe Author(s) 2020
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would be limitations associated with the quality of data
(Carpenter et al. 2009; Martı
´n-Lo
´pez et al. 2012; Castro
et al. 2014). In our study, we developed a grid bundle
analysis to improve the spatial resolution and provide
results at a spatial resolution that is relevant for decision-
making for the Sagebrush Steppe Land Trust. Deciding the
appropriate resolution in ES bundle analysis is a key step in
deriving accessible results that will inform land trust land
management strategies. Therefore, the bundle resolution
must be agreed upon by scientists and decision makers in
order to ensure its application. In our study, the selection of
a595 km size grid for the bundle analysis was based on
two premises: (1) our ability to preserve heterogeneity in
the original data while maintaining a dataset that is man-
ageable for computation; and (2) identify areas that have a
higher likelihood of containing lands with more than one
landowner in the grid cell, which increases the number of
potential landowners per grid.
Conservation initiatives on privately owned land can
help to mitigate the loss of global biodiversity and engage
new actors to conservation (Kamal et al. 2015; Gooden and
Sas-Rolfes 2020). There are many motives for conserva-
tionists to support the increased attention to private land
(Gooden 2019; Gooden and Sas-Rolfes 2020). On one
hand, private lands fulfill many of the same functions as
public protected areas, including ecosystem services (such
as climate regulation, freshwater supply, water regulation
or air quality) and social ones (such as recreation, spiritual
and cultural heritage) (Langholz and Lassoie 2001). On the
other side, private lands also can provide important eco-
logical functions as corridors and buffer zones for larger
protected areas (Willis et al. 2012). In addition, the intro-
duction of new social actors into conservation may increase
potential for innovation and entrepreneurship and this can
lead to better, more viable, and collaborative decisions
(Kerr and Tindale 2004; Moon et al. 2014; Gooden and
Sas-Rolfes 2020), while simultaneously the proximity to
conservation easements can increase nearby property eco-
nomic values (Reeves et al. 2018). However, private con-
servation initiatives may also be controversial, as can be
argued that it is a form of privatization of protected areas or
commodification of nature conservation. Several uncer-
tainties are derived from the private nature of these private
lands. For instance, private land conservation is driven by a
variety of influences, such as the voluntary action under-
taken by landowners, which is influenced not only by
external factors such as financial incentives, but also by
personal and psychological factors (Gooden 2019). Top-
down approaches to biodiversity conservation on private
land have had negative repercussions, with landowners
expressing their unwillingness to participate in conserva-
tion strategies that provide no benefits for them (Grodzin-
ska-Jurczak and Cent 2011; Kamal et al. 2015). On the
other side, most private lands are informally protected
(Langholz and Lassoie 2001) and this can promote several
future uncertainties regarding the future continuation in a
long term. Integrating private land into conservation
planning and management is complicated by the nature of
landownership and the complex social and economic traits
that are interrelated with its current use (Mascia 2003;
Raymond and Brown 2011; Kamal et al. 2015).
Our approach can be used to implement transdisci-
plinary processes where the scientific, public, and policy-
making communities work together with the goal of
developing private conservation strategies (Lo
´pez-Rodrı
´-
guez et al. 2017). Although our results refer to a specific
case study in the Western U.S., the approach proposed can
be easily translated to other areas in the world, because
private lands are proliferating both in the developing world
and in industrialized countries. In Africa, for example, a
long history of game ranches has provided important areas
for creating private reserves (Langholz and Lassoie 2001).
In other regions in Latin America, private lands are also
expanding, such as in Colombia or Brazil, because it rep-
resents an alternative to the government’s insufficient
management. In addition, recently different governments
are establishing private land conservation mechanisms for
motivating its implementation (Gooden and Sas-Rolfes
2020). For example, the Chilean government has passed
legislation to permit the derecho real, a newly codified
conservation property right (ILCN 2016; Gooden and Sas-
Rolfes 2020). In Catalonia (Spain), a land stewardship
network called Xarxa de Custodia del Territori has made
progress to secure legislation enabling land stewardship
agreements and tax incentives (Brandehof 2018). All these
strategies related to nature conservation on private land are
being explored globally from legal prescriptions to finan-
cial incentives and participatory site selection approaches
(Kamal et al. 2015). The raising of private land around the
world imply needs for the implementation of interdisci-
plinary approaches that allow to secure the protection of
ecological, social, and cultural values of land. Specifically,
by increasing the collaboration between NGOs, such as
land trust organizations, and interdisciplinary scientists,
similar research on public areas can help to answer
important management questions while developing applied
solutions for conservation (Knight et al. 2008; Bennett
et al. 2017). While this study provides a case study
example on how to apply interdisciplinary research meth-
ods to land trust conservation easement efforts, future
studies should closely collaborate with conservation orga-
nizations throughout the entire research process in order to
achieve the best results for conservation management and
decision (Graves et al. 2019).
123 ÓThe Author(s) 2020
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Ambio

CONCLUSION
Conservation easements implemented by land trusts are
the fastest growing mechanism for private land conser-
vation in the U.S. The proposed methodological approach
to identify future lands for conservation can increase the
success of conservation efforts because it not only
implements a biophysical assessment of conservation
goals, but also incorporates multiple views, visions, and
perceptions of local private landowners. We call the
urgent need for collaboration between scientists, land
trusts or other conservation organizations, local commu-
nities, and managers to evaluate and monitor the current
and future state of private conservation areas. This
transdisciplinary collaboration will lead to a more effec-
tive implementation of applied research into on-the-
ground management and might facilitate the involvement
of key stakeholders in conservation, which might con-
tribute to increase the success of growing private con-
servation strategies. Acknowledging the future
conservation of private land with high ecological value
will require a landowner acceptance of conservation
goals; thus it poses the need of establishing new incen-
tives and methodologies to make visible benefits from
conservation and making it more attractive, acceptable,
and plausible framed in ‘win–win’ scenarios. Future
research demands new efforts for promoting transdisci-
plinary scientific approaches focused on strengthening
collaboration among the scientific, public, and policy-
making communities when developing and implementing
new private conservation strategies.
Acknowledgements Open Access funding provided by Projekt
DEAL. This project was made possible by the NSF Idaho EPSCoR
Program and by the National Science Foundation under award
number IIA-1301792. We would like to thank the Sagebrush Steppe
Land Trust for their partnership on this research, and the MILES
(Managing Idaho’s Landscapes for Ecosystem Services) project for
resources and collaboration. We certify that the Institutional Review
Board (IRB) for the Protection of Human Participants at Idaho State
University has approved the IRB protocol with permit number IRB-
FY2016-371. The research reported in this paper contributes to the
Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (www.pecs-science.
org).
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as
long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the
source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate
if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this
article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless
indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not
included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended
use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted
use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright
holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES
Cristina Quintas-Soriano (&) is a Postdoctoral Researcher at
University of Kassel, Germany. Her research interests include land-
scape ecology, ecosystem service science, and social-ecological sus-
tainability.
Address: Social-Ecological Interactions in Agricultural Systems,
Faculty of Organic Agricultural Sciences, University of Kassel, 37213
Witzenhausen, Germany.
Address: Social-Ecological Research Lab, Department of Biological
Sciences, Idaho State University, 921 South 8th Avenue, Pocatello,
ID 83209, USA.
Address: Departamento de Biologı
´a Vegetal y Ecologı
´a, Centro
Andaluz para la Evaluacio
´n y Seguimiento de Cambio Global
(CASCG), Universidad de Almerı
´a, La Can
˜ada de San Urbano, 04120
Almerı
´a, Spain.
e-mail: cquintassoriano@gmail.com; cristina.quintas@uni-kassel.de
Dainee M. Gibson is a master student at Idaho State University,
USA. Her research interests include landscape ecology, conservation
science, and biodiversity conservation.
Address: Social-Ecological Research Lab, Department of Biological
Sciences, Idaho State University, 921 South 8th Avenue, Pocatello,
ID 83209, USA.
e-mail: daineemarie@gmail.com
Jodi S. Brandt is an Assistant Professor at Boise State University,
USA. She is the leader of the Land Use Lab. Her research interests
include land-use science, landscape change and its drivers, and the
impacts of landscape change on biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Address: Human–Environment Systems Center, Boise State Univer-
sity, Boise, ID 83725, USA.
e-mail: jodibrandt@boisestate.edu
Marı
´aD.Lo
´pez-Rodrı
´guez is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain. Her research interests include
science-policy interface, conservation science, and social-ecological
analysis.
Address: Departamento de Biologı
´a Vegetal y Ecologı
´a, Centro
Andaluz para la Evaluacio
´n y Seguimiento de Cambio Global
(CASCG), Universidad de Almerı
´a, La Can
˜ada de San Urbano, 04120
Almerı
´a, Spain.
Address: Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3)-Universitat Oberta
de Catalunya (UOC), Av. Friedrich Gauss 5, 08860 Castelldefels,
Barcelona, Spain.
e-mail: mdlopezrod@gmail.com
Javier Cabello is a Full Professor at University of Almeria, Spain.
His research interests include Environmental Science, Ecology, and
Conservation.
Address: Departamento de Biologı
´a Vegetal y Ecologı
´a, Centro
Andaluz para la Evaluacio
´n y Seguimiento de Cambio Global
(CASCG), Universidad de Almerı
´a, La Can
˜ada de San Urbano, 04120
Almerı
´a, Spain.
e-mail: jcabello@ual.es
Pedro A. Aguilera is a Full Professor at University of Almeria,
Spain. His research interests include conservation science, ecosystem
service, and network analysis.
Address: Informatics and Environmental Research Group, Depart-
ment of Biology and Geology, University of Almerı
´a, Almerı
´a, Spain.
e-mail: aguilera@ual.es
Antonio J. Castro is an Associate Professor at University of Almeria
(Spain) and Affiliated Faculty at Idaho State University (USA). His
research interests include ecosystem service science, social-ecological
systems, and place-based research.
Address: Social-Ecological Research Lab, Department of Biological
Sciences, Idaho State University, 921 South 8th Avenue, Pocatello,
ID 83209, USA.
Address: Departamento de Biologı
´a Vegetal y Ecologı
´a, Centro
Andaluz para la Evaluacio
´n y Seguimiento de Cambio Global
(CASCG), Universidad de Almerı
´a, La Can
˜ada de San Urbano, 04120
Almerı
´a, Spain.
e-mail: acastro@ual.es
ÓThe Author(s) 2020
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