RD120 - Biennial Report of the Virginia Land Conservation Board


    Executive Summary:
    The Virginia Land Conservation Foundation (Foundation) has seen significant changes since its inception in 1992. Since that time, the Foundation has experienced a name change from the Virginia Conservation and Recreation Foundation to the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation, it has seen significant expansion and improvement to its Code authority, and it has launched a successful grants program. In 2000, the Foundation saw its Board of Trustees grow from 9 members to 18 members. In 2006, the Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry also was added to the Board.

    Deposits to the Foundation, which have been applied to grant rounds or allocations to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, have exceeded $34 million since FY2000 (Table 1). Of this amount, over $7.2 million has been or will be transferred to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation and approximately $25.8 million has been allocated to the VLCF grant projects. The remaining unobligated amounts reverted to the General Fund during budget cuts.

    Table 1: Funding General Summary [See full report for table.]

    Since first receiving funding in FY2000, the Foundation has held five grant rounds (awards for 5th round pending on 06/13/07). The Foundation received during these five rounds 167 applications requesting approximately $82 million in state funding (Table 2). In total, the Foundation awarded funding to 69 grant projects for $21,753,613 (represents 4 rounds of awards). Several of these projects were withdrawn by applicants that had difficulty closing on the proposed property. Currently, the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation is advancing grants for $20,670,264 that protects an estimated 20,050.87 acres. (Note: As projects close, final revenue paid and acreages protected may be revised. These changes will be reflected in subsequent reports.) This amount has been significantly leveraged through matches and other partnerships.

    The Foundation also met its charge to develop a strategic plan for the expenditure of unrestricted moneys received from the Fund. The strategic plan governing fiscal expenditures for FY2000 was the grant program guidelines entitled “1999 Virginia Land Conservation Fund Grant Program, September 1999,” and the strategic plan for FY2000-2001 was the grant program guidelines entitled “2000 Virginia Land Conservation Fund Grant Program, October 2000”. In 2004, the General Assembly called for a refinement of these guidance criteria. The existing criteria of the Foundation were revised to incorporate those items identified in Item 383 H3 of Chapter 4 of the 2004 Virginia Acts of Assembly, Special Session 1. This item directed the Foundation to develop new review criteria that additionally address the relative water quality merits of each prospective grant parcel. The new criteria were printed in 2005 in House Document 3 entitled “Criteria for Evaluation of 2005 Virginia Land Conservation Foundation Grant Applications”. The resulting criteria also were contained in the FY2005-2006 grant program guidelines document entitled “2005 Virginia Land Conservation Fund Grant Program, November 15, 2004,” and in the updated guidelines approved by the VLCF Board on June 7, 2005 and entitled “2005 Virginia Land Conservation Fund Grant Program, (July 1, 2005 – September 20, 2005 Grant Round).” In 2006, the grant manual was again updated and the scoring criteria were amended. Following a public comment period in July, the revisions were approved by the Board on August 9, 2006 for use during the November 15, 2006 – January 16, 2007 Grant Round. The grant manual may be found at www.dcr.virginia.gov/vlcf.

    Table 2: Grant Award Summary [See full report for table.]

    The Foundation is and, if properly funded, will continue to be one of the primary tools through which Virginia will achieve its conservation targets, especially the Governor’s 400,000-acre preservation goal by 2010. The Foundation also is one of the key elements in assisting the Chesapeake Bay states in achieving the Chesapeake 2000 commitment to permanently preserve from development 20 percent of the land in the watershed by 2010.

    The Virginia Land Conservation Foundation also serves as a coordinating mechanism for bringing together a number of state agencies’ land conservation efforts and priorities. A coordinating agency task force made up of the Director of the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the State Forester, the Director of the Department of Historic Resources, the Director of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and the Executive Director of the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, or their designees, provide the VLCF Board with assistance on such matters as grant criteria, grant priorities, and grant selection.

    To help foster the goals of the Foundation, the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Office of Land Conservation was established to serve as a statewide, central contact, repository, and clearinghouse for land conservation in Virginia. During grant rounds, this Office serves as an important source of information for potential Foundation grant applicants. The Office’s website ( http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/olc/) includes a wide variety of land conservation materials and contact information that provides land conservationists and managers with an important land conservation planning tool. In addition, the website provides a link to the state’s first comprehensive statewide public lands resource mapping tool. This important land conservation planning tool, which is regularly updated, can be accessed at http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/olc/tools02a.htm.

    DCR also has developed the “Conservation Sites Database” based upon nineteen years of developing the Natural Heritage Information System, Virginia’s most comprehensive information management system on endangered plants and animals and natural habitats. Conservation sites are mapped boundaries that enclose one or more rare plant or animal locations, or a significant natural community, and the surrounding habitat or buffer necessary to protect the resource(s). DCR also has produced the Virginia Conservation Lands Needs Assessment (VCLNA) Natural Landscape Assessment for Virginia’s Coastal Zone, and is continuing to expand the map layers to cover the whole state. The VLCNA identifies which are the most important natural, unfragmented lands, based on considerations of biological and ecological value and integrity. Both of these tools will be utilized to assess grant projects submitted to the Foundation for funding consideration.

    In summary, the Foundation will continue to be a critical element in meeting the Commonwealth’s conservation commitments including the Governor’s 400,000-acre goal, coordinating land conservation efforts, developing important website tools, and preserving the important lands across the Commonwealth as a whole.