Technical Consulting Services
Land conservation project management
Land conservation projects are complex and dynamic. Faced with both expanding development pressure as well as unprecedented funding levels at the Federal-level, many conservation organizations are struggling to keep up with the pace of land conservation needs. If your organization needs extra workforce capacity to complete projects or expert advice on a high-profile or complex project, Grow Conservation can help.
Over his career, Ryan has led conservation projects totaling over 60,000 acres. He has years of experience in all phases of land conservation projects, including:
- landowner negotiations,
- funding source identification,
- contract authorship and editing,
- environmental and title due diligence, and closings.
Ryan has negotiated with a wide range of landowners ranging from families to large corporations. He has engaged a variety of funders, including private foundations, the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the U.S. Forest Service. By working closely with legal experts during his career, Ryan has become adept at the preparation of complex easements and sales contracts. Using these skills, he can ensure that your conservation priorities and values are appropriately reflected in your legal instruments. Both as an environmental consultant and with the Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry, Ryan engaged in due diligence processes, and he can help alleviate your environmental liability or title concerns. In collaboration with closing agents or counsel, Grow Conservation can guide your project to a successful closing to get that land conserved.
Grow Conservation can also help you prioritize your land conservation projects by helping you develop ranking systems or geographic focus areas to more effectively target your conservation funding and effort.
Land and forest management planning
Stewardship and intentional management are critically important to realize the full ecological, social, and economic potential of conserved lands. If you have an easement, preserve, or public land in need of land management planning, Grow Conservation can assist in the assessment of resource concerns on your property and development of management recommendations. These recommendations can range from preservation of critical or sensitive habitats, to ecological enhancements through best-management-practices, to improvements in public recreation experiences.
Ryan can bring his years of experience in land management planning to your property. He led the development of Pennsylvania’s 2016 State Forest Resource Management Plan (SFRMP) and the 20 District-Level SFRMPs that were completed in the years that followed. The SFRMPs govern all aspects of state forest management on the 2.2-million-acre Pennsylvania state forest system, including the following:
- timber management,
- water quality protection,
- oil and gas resource management,
- recreation management, and
- wildlife habitat management.
Grow Conservation will begin its work on your land management plan by understanding what you, and potentially your stakeholders, value most about the land. We will then help you identify systems and funding sources so you can achieve your goals across these various facets of land management.
Acquisition process quality assurance
Each phase of a land acquisition process has important steps that need to be performed efficiently and accurately. Sometimes a change in a single word in an easement or sales contract can make a huge difference in the future conservation and management of the subject property. Grow Conservation’s process focus and detail-oriented approach to land or easement acquisition can help ease your mind when it comes to complex acquisition projects or programs.
Ryan has a decade of experience managing a state-wide land conservation program that protected over 60,000 acres during his tenure. Grow Conservation can develop processes, systems, and checklists to make sure your program stays on track. Ryan has negotiated complex, multi-million-dollar sales contracts and customized easements. He can make certain that the language in your legal instruments has the intended meaning to protect the land and protect your interests into the future. Grow Conservation can help keep these details from keeping you up at night.
Ryan can step in to assist with quality assurance on a particular process or a singular project, or he can serve as an on-call contractor to perform quality checks on an ongoing basis for your projects and their associated documents.
Site assessment and monitoring
Site assessment can be critical to a variety of conservation endeavors. Your organization may need to assess the conservation values of potential acquisitions or existing preserves, perhaps to establish baseline conditions. As you hold more and more conservation easements, you may have issues with your capacity to prepare monitoring reports and ensure easement compliance.
Ryan has diverse experience from both his public and private sector careers, in ecological assessment, including wildlife habitat assessment, aerial photograph interpretation, forest inventory, and stream and wetland assessment. His private sector experience spans specialties valuable to the conservation community. Ryan’s experience in the mitigation banking industry could help your organization consider mitigation banking revenue opportunities or whether you are an appropriate final landowner of a mitigation bank. His experience in natural resource damage (NRD) assessment could be valuable in establishing monetary value of ecological assets or in considering whether to engage in restoration efforts related to an NRD settlement.
Across land types and disciplines, Grow Conservation has the background and expertise to assist with a variety of site assessment and monitoring needs.
Sustainability advising
Sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues are of growing interest for everyone from organization C-suites to users, customers, and consumers. Grow Conservation is positioned to advise entities on sustainability and ESG values.
Ryan spent nearly a decade managing the certification program at the Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry, ensuring that the 2.2-million-acre state forest system maintained its dual-certification as sustainably managed under both the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards. The SFI and FSC standards contain specifications across ecological, social, and economic factors. Grow Conservation can advise landowners on how to achieve or maintain conformance with these and other sustainability standards.
Ryan also has a professional certificate in Sustainable Business from Cornell University and has served on “green” committees at both private and public entities. Grow Conservation can assist your organization in considering the sustainability of its operations or addressing ESG values in its business.
