Endangered species get a huge bump when private lands are brought into the conservation mix

America contains acres upon acres of undeveloped, privately held land. Nothing has been built on this land, and no one is farming it or living on it. Its owners might have set it aside as an investment, or for future ventures, or just in case. But a recent paper in Scientific Reports suggests another effective use for all these acres: leave them alone, in order to help protect some of the country’s rarest animals. The United States is home to 160 species of endangered mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles. “Just like every person needs a home, all of these species need a home,” says John P. Draper, a PhD candidate at Utah State University and an author of the new paper. This need is often best met by a protected area, which can offer respite from hunting, habitat destruction, and other human activities. Other studies have suggested that for a species to persist in the wild, 30% of its range has to be protected (a rule of thumb that of course varies depending on the species and context). The United States is full of national parks, conservation land, and other areas where these species could hypothetically live in relative safety. But a lot of these protected areas weren’t created with biodiversity in mind. Instead, Draper says, they were more often geologically important, aesthetically beautiful, or simply “still on the federal books” after the end of the Homestead Act. So the set-aside space doesn’t necessarily overlap with where at-risk species actually want to live—places with the right food, shelter and climatic conditions. In their analysis, the researchers found that in 80% of regions that include endangered species, including much of the Western and Central U.S., “protected areas offer equal or worse protection [to the species in question] than if their locations were chosen at random.” Past studies have also found this to be true in Australia, Canada, and Laos. What’s the solution?...MORE

I'm sure you guessed it. First, they say "we should protect more federal and state public lands" and then "bring more private landowners into the mix". The U.S. federal acreage is 640 million acres, 150 million acres of which is in wildlife refuges and 111 million acres is in Wilderness. State governments own 58 million acres and there are already over 56 million acres in private conservation easements. But they just don't "overlap" in the right place for endangered species don't you see. It seems to me they should enter into some land exchanges to solve most of this "overlap" problem.