American Bison - Buffalo Field Campaign

indigenous peoples’ land (Dudley 2008). Within the original
range of bison, there are extensive Native-owned grassland and
mountain foothills landscapes suitable for bison restoration.
These tribal lands present great opportunities to restore bison in
a culturally sensitive way, protecting the rights and interests of
traditional landowners. IUCN has identified basic principles of
good governance as they relate to protected areas overlapping
with indigenous peoples’ traditional lands. In addition, there is
one group, the ITBC, whose defining mission is restoration of
bison. Cooperation of tribes and tribal organisations is essential
to the conservation and restoration of bison in North America
and should be encouraged. Governments and NGOs in North
America should examine and then modify current policy and
legislation to support the traditional and cultural interests of
indigenous peoples relevant to bison restoration.
There is significant variation in jurisdictional powers over
tribal landscapes, ranging from sovereignty over the land
to co-management with other governments. It is important
to understand indigenous peoples’ rights and their level
of authority over landscapes when designing restoration
and conservation plans for bison. It is equally important to
understand the cultural traditions and spiritual connections
between indigenous people and bison. Some of this
information is traditional knowledge that can only be acquired
through conversation with elders and tribal leaders.
8.5.2.5 Local communities and economies
One key ingredient of successful bison conservation is
active stakeholder participation in the development and
implementation of conservation programmes. Stakeholders
include all people or groups of people who are affected by, or
can affect, the conservation programme. On public lands it is
particularly important to have local support (individuals, adjacent
landowners and communities) for policy changes and new
legislation, and to avoid backlash from the types of regulatory
protection that might be necessary for a successful conservation
initiative (Merenlender et al. 2004). For landscapes with mixed
jurisdiction (public and private), it will be necessary to engage
stakeholders by developing critical relationships, building mutual
understanding and designing an appropriate co-management
framework.
Restoring bison to mixed-use landscapes will involve addressing
conflicts with neighbouring landowners. These neighbours need
some assurance that when conflicts arise they will be addressed
as restoration projects are implemented. Comprehensive
restoration and management plans will be required to clearly
articulate population goals and to identify how agricultural
conflicts are going to be resolved. Ranch land neighbours,
living on agriculture lands near restoration projects, pose a
great challenge, but may also provide a significant open-space
buffer essential to the success of large-scale conservation
efforts. Measures must be designed to appropriately manage
the distribution of bison and address any trespass conflicts
that arise. Other concepts to consider include the idea of
wildlife damage insurance, economic incentives, and creative
conservation-incentives to encourage and reward tolerance
(Muchapondwa 2003).
Ecosystem services have been defined as “the process by
which the environment produces resources that we take for
granted such as clean water, timber, pollination of plants,
and habitat for fish and wildlife” (Daly et al. 1997). Bison
restoration and conservation programmes should consider
assessing the value of ecosystem services associated with the
development of a conservation strategy for bison. TNC has
made significant investments in pursuing the valuation and
marketing of ecosystem services as a conservation strategy
and financing tool (Groves et al. 2008; Nelson et al. 2009).
TNC, in collaboration with Stanford University and WWF, has
developed a Natural Capital Project to better understand
the economic values associated with natural systems (www.
naturalcapitalproject.org). This project developed a tool known
as InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and
Tradeoffs) for quantifying ecosystem services for their inclusion
in natural resource decision-making. They also established
a “Swat Team” of ecosystem modellers and mappers who
use InVEST to bring the valuation system into policy and
decision-making for conservation projects (Groves et al.
2008). Approaches such as this may be useful in the valuation
of ecosystem services associated with the conservation
of large grassland landscapes and the role of bison as a
keystone herbivore on those landscapes. We recommend
further exploration of these emerging valuation tools and their
application to the conservation and restoration of bison in
North America.
In another novel programme, a coalition of NGOs, state and
federal agencies, ranchers, and researchers has been developing
a Pay-for-Environmental Services (PES) programme in Florida
(Bohlen et al. 2009). This programme compensates cattle
ranchers in Florida’s northern everglades for providing water
storage and nutrient retention on private lands. Key challenges
to this programme include: identifying a buyer and defining the
environmental service; agreeing upon approaches to quantify the
service; reducing programme costs in light of current policies;
and complex regulatory issues. Design of a PES programme
requires navigating through a complex regulatory maze created
by multiple state and federal agencies (Bohlen et al. 2009).
This new model may provide an example for developing a PES
on bison landscapes. In the case of bison restoration it will be
challenging to meet the needs of multiple stakeholders, and to
find the first entrepreneurial landowner willing start a new trend
by participating.
American Bison: Status Survey and Conservation Guidelines 2010 79