Description of Lands Covered. This section provides a brief description of the types of lands considered under the term “energy and transportation lands” as well as summarizes the operational considerations, as well as opportunities and constraints for monarch conservation on these lands. This Agreement addresses these myriad opportunities and constraints through the adaptive management flexibility to strategically place conservation measures where they benefit monarchs and where land use and authorities are compatible. Enrolled partners have options for shifting placement of conservation measures over time to address conservation needs of the species, interests of other underlying or adjacent landowners, local laws, regulations, or other constraints that may limit the ability to apply conservation measures in a given area. The following descriptions of lands were initially adapted from the draft MAMCS (MAFWA 2018a and 2018b). Energy and transportation partners involved in development of this Agreement reviewed those descriptions, as applicable, and amended and expanded as necessary specific to this CCAA. Transportation and utility rights-of-way are ubiquitous across the North American landscape, crisscrossing our mountains, forests, grasslands, deserts, farms, parks, and cities. Though often overlooked as terrestrial habitat, energy and utility rights-of-way comprise about 12 million acres of land in North America (Xxxxxxxx et al. 2015 as cited by MAFWA 2018a), and transportation rights-of-way, including those along roads and railroads, represent even greater acreage of habitat. State DOT-managed roadsides alone consist of over 17 million acres of land in the United States (Xxxxxxx et al. 2015). Vegetation within the majority of both energy and transportation land is generally managed to prevent the growth of trees and other large woody vegetation. This results in land that is in a perpetual state of arrested early successional habitat, thus held in grassland, meadow, prairie, or shrub-scrub type communities (Xxxxxx & Xxxxxxxxx 2011). Early successional habitats are in decline across North America due to changes in land use and vegetation management practices; however, energy and transportation lands present an incredible opportunity to provide valuable wildlife habitat to species that depend on early successional plant communities and structures, such as monarch butterflies and other pollinators. This Agreement acknowledges the important role these lands have in monarch conservation ...
