The Northwest Arkansas Land Trust has secured a new 30-acre conservation easement on War Eagle Creek. Ben Speight is the director of land protection for the trust and joined Ozarks at Large in the Bruce and Ann Applegate News Studio One to explain a little bit more about the property and how conservation easements legally protect land forever.
Ben Speight: So we've been on an outreach endeavor in the War Eagle, trying to drum up some conservation easements in there. And the landowner kind of just heard about us through word of mouth, then reached out. We went out there and toured the property and it was just perfect for conservation. So we were happy to work with them.
Travis: Nice. What made it so perfect for conservation?
Speight: So that area out towards Sonora is ripe for development. You can see a lot going on out there. And they had on their property 1,100 linear feet of stream, which then led into War Eagle Creek, and a really cool two caves, so great bat habitat. And it's just really high slopes, not really great for development, so it's perfect for conservation.
Travis: Let's kind of get into that. Describe the property just a little bit more. Like if we're standing out there, what are we seeing?
Speight: So it's a 30-acre property. You kind of come in on a really winding road and there's about a five-acre flat spot where they built their house and garage and things like that. And then pretty much everything else is just huge, steep slopes — like 10-15%— dropping straight down to a creek, with those caves kind of interspersed going down the slope. Beautiful oak-hickory forest, pretty old for the area, about 75 to 100 years old. Just overall beautiful, and the high slopes are incredible. So we're there to protect those.
Travis: Whenever we say conservation, are we doing streambank rehabilitation or are we just protecting this for the future?
Speight: So this is all about protection for the future. We don't really do any management or actual stewardship of our conservation easement properties. What it is is just a legal agreement that restricts development of the property. We kind of agree on certain uses that they see for themselves in the future and restrict it to be really low development. So it's really just about a legal agreement that runs forever and not necessarily about stream restoration or any kind of forest stewardship. But the end goal is to make sure that that parcel stays a 30-acre parcel forever and doesn't develop any more than it already is.
Travis: And so it's protected. It's safe now.
Speight: That's the goal — basically just to make sure that all those natural functions can still continue on into the future and stay clean water and doing what they're supposed to be doing.
Travis: How does that feel? You're the person that heads this up. You must care about the environment. Does it feel good to protect something in perpetuity like this?
Speight: Oh, it's my favorite feeling in the world. I've always been a lover of the outdoors, a lover of nature. And so doing something like this that can last beyond me, beyond my organization — you never know what's going to happen — and this document will last forever. So it's really great to have that kind of impact on our region.
Travis: It's like a naturalist's dream, right? Like you're in a beautiful place and you're like, I wish this could just stay like this forever, and through the land trust, you're doing that.
Speight: That's kind of the end goal. We really want these properties to be productive for the person living there, but the end goal is making sure that it doesn't turn into massive single-family housing. Those things are necessary in certain areas, but certain areas deserve the protection. So it's just really great to be able to do something like that.
Travis: And that's a cool element of it too, that the family is going to be able to stay on the property, right? It's not becoming like a nature preserve or something.
Speight: That's the beauty of conservation easements — they're so flexible and really can be tailored to any property. Public access or public preserve is not a component that we push. It's all up to the landowner. And for them, this is their home. It's where they want to stay for the rest of their lives. And so that's what it'll be. And as it gets sold on to the next person, the easement attaches and they'll have to be bound by the easement, but it's going to be a single-family housing unit, basically.
Travis: And you said that they learned about this through word of mouth. Let's say somebody's listening to this and they think, oh, my property might be good for this. How could they get in contact with you and kind of get that process started for their property?
Speight: So you can find us on our website at nwalandtrust.org. They'll have my contact information on there and kind of a brief rundown of all of our conservation tools. And we always suggest just reach out — we'd love to come see any property and evaluate conservation and see if it's a perfect fit.
Travis: And then War Eagle Creek specifically — this easement is part of a larger initiative. Could you talk about that a little bit?
Speight: Yeah. So this is all a part of the War Eagle Creek Initiative, which is an RCPP grant from the NRCS — which has a lot of acronyms.
Travis: Alphabet soup.
Speight: Yeah. So it's the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and it's a Regional Conservation Partnership Program. Beaver Watershed Alliance is heading the partnership — they're the lead organization. There are up to 15 partners in total, and we're providing match through conservation easement value. So that's kind of our role, but they support our outreach efforts on the watershed. We've been really great partners. I'm really thankful that they included us in on this project.
And then another major partner is Beaver Water District. A lot of our work in the Beaver Lake watershed is impossible without them. They recognize that clean water on the front end means cheaper cleaning costs on the back end. It's actually crazy — if you increase turbidity by 1%, you increase the chemical cost to clean by 0.25%. So they kind of go together. When land stays in forest, the water is cheaper and easier to clean. They support us and paid for our stewardship costs on this.
Travis: Have you worked in land conservation before?
Speight: I have kind of a winding past, but I was a forester for a little while, so I did very land management-driven work, basically single property. And this is my first time really trying to reach out and do regional stuff like this.
Travis: Can you talk about — no pun intended — the ecosystem for environmental nonprofits working together? That's something I've heard is maybe a bit unique for our region, how cohesively everybody kind of steps in line toward the same goal.
Speight: I don't have much experience outside of this region, but since I've stepped into this role, it's been amazing. All the partners that we've worked with in this space — we all have our niche, but we all try to support each other as much as possible. Whether that's Beaver Watershed Alliance, Illinois River Watershed Partnership, WCRC — all of them. We kind of work together knowing that we have our tools, they have their tools, so let's all use them together to do something good.
Travis: Awesome. And the public is going to have a chance to support the land trust starting April 9. You've got the Season of Stewardship. Could you tell us a little bit about that?
Speight: Yeah. So this is our campaign that aims to raise about $40,000 to support our conservation efforts — whether that's habitat restoration, water quality protection or stewardship of our local preserves, which we have nine of. As a part of that, we have a couple of events coming up. We have our Illinois River cleanup on April 18, which is in partnership with IRWP. And then on April 25, we have our Morning on the Land, which is a new series that we're going to make an annual series. It's going to take place at our Betty Hinshaw Bird Sanctuary, which is just south of Tontitown. There's going to be volunteer events, yoga out there, we're going to cook some food. It's going to be really great to get out and hang out with people that are interested in conservation and learn a little bit more about the land trust.
Travis: And one more time, what's your website where people can go for more information about the Season of Stewardship and getting an easement started on their own property?
Speight: You can find us at nwalandtrust.org.
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