Revolving Lands Partnership

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IN DEVELOPMENT!!!

The Great Rivers Habitat Alliance is proposing the creation of a place-based partnership designed to increase focus and achieve a shared vision of protecting the Confluence floodplain called the GRHA Revolving Lands Partnership.

The Problem: Today, the Confluence's ability to serve the ecological functions and protections is at great risk due to unfettered commercial development as locally sprawling urban populations, municipalities and developers often view the floodplain as cheap expansion zones for factories, homes, airports and shopping malls.

The Plan: GRHA’s Confluence Revolving Land Partnership will provide seed capital to work with regional landowners to facilitate voluntary, permanent protection and restoration of key areas in the Confluence. GRHA will lead in partnership with supporters and will execute acquisition, restoration and resale of properties in an agreed upon zone of the Confluence area. GRHA in close collaboration with Ducks Unlimited will look to execute permanent protection of critical habitats via Conservation easements on lands in the agreed upon zone of the Confluence area.

Through the program, GRHA identifies a property for sale with much of the habitat value intact, but where there is a high risk of losing this habitat because it is not protected by easements and is adjacent to or threatened by potential development. We then purchase it from the willing seller, restore those habitat features that are degraded, and place a conservation easement on the property. Once restored and protected from future demise, GRHA ultimately looks to sell the property to a conservation buyer. Potential buyers include farmers and other conservation-minded private individuals, and state or federal natural resource management agencies.

Together the Partnership will,

Create a fund that will be used to purchase and restore properties.
Plan and implement habitat restoration/improvements on these properties. These restorations and improvements will be guided by a shared set of priorities for nutrient reduction, flood mitigation, carbon storage, and habitat creation.
Champion improved valuation and marketplaces for flood storage credits, nutrient trading, and carbon credit markets accessible to agricultural landowners.
Champion and increase the uptake of conservation easements in the Confluence.
Use our broad networks and communication platforms to highlight the partnership and the impact it is having on both people and nature.
Utilize our philanthropic relationships with other supporters and state/federal partners to grow this fund significantly.
Transact land deals in a manner that addresses the individual circumstances and desires of landowners.

Our Conservation Programs

Foster Rollins Conservation and Education Area

Foster Rollins Conservation And Education Area

In 2022, Great Rivers Habitat Alliance embarked on an exciting new venture to protect more than 181 acres of floodplain habitat along the Mississippi River and create what we will call the GRHA Foster-Rollins Floodplain Conservation and Education Area. The property is just south of St. Louis and adjoining Cliff Cave County Park and Marions Place. The property is now the largest currently owned by GRHA. That journey took another step when GRHA closed on the property on April 11, 2024.

DU EasementProgram Partnership

DU Easement Program Partnership

GRHA Partners with Ducks Unlimited in many ways including the DU Conservation Easement Program. GRHA partners in the Conservation Easement Program increase the uptake of private conservation easements by providing landowners financial support during the due diligence process and by promoting the overall program. These easements preserve the land in perpetuity, with a goal of eventually assembling enough parcels to effectively create a wall of protection against commercial development in the Confluence.

Missouri Big Rivers Initiative

GRHA partners with Ducks Unlimited and other partners on projects addressing wetland loss and flooding within the Confluence through DU’s Big Rivers Initiative -Missouri. The Confluence of the Mississippi, Illinois, and Missouri Rivers is North America’s greatest floodplain forming a unique wetland system known as the Confluence Floodplain. This region carries waters from over half of the United States landscape and serves vital ecological functions such as storage and purification of floodwaters.

Brentwood Bound

Brentwood Bound Project

The Brentwood Bound Plan is a comprehensive solution to overcome flooding and public safety challenges presented by the Deer Creek channel and to improve the Manchester Road corridor within the City of Brentwood. Great Rivers Habitat Alliance with support of the Fox Family Foundation is proud to partner with the City of Brentwood in their Brentwood Bound Plan and Deer Creek Flood Mitigation project.

Missouri Agricultural Wetlands Initiative Partnership

GRHA continues its strategy of partnerships to protect the Confluence through programs such as the Missouri Agriculture Wetlands Initiative, which delivers coordinated private land conservation in the Confluence. GRHA is proud to join the Missouri Agricultural Wetland Initiative (MAWI) Partnership and will support the partnership through an annual gift restricted to projects in the 3 county areas of Lincoln, Pike and St. Charles.

Wisconsin Big Rivers Initiative

Great Rivers Habitat Alliance has made a commitment to partner with Wisconsin Ducks Unlimited and other partners to support Wisconsin’s Big Rivers Initiative. The Wisconsin Big Rivers Initiative focuses on the western two-thirds of the state that drains into the Mississippi River, down to the Confluence and eventually the Gulf of Mexico.

Revolving Lands Partnership

The Great Rivers Habitat Alliance is proposing the creation of a placed-based partnership designed to increase focus and achieve a shared vision of protecting the Confluence floodplain called the GRHA Revolving Lands Partnership.

Great Rivers Environmental Law Center

Great Rivers Environmental Law Center partners with Great Rivers Habitat Alliance by providing free legal services to protect the environment and public health. We work together through the courts and administrative agencies to safeguard the environment by enforcing environmental laws, especially air and water pollution laws and laws intended to protect wetlands, floodplains, open space, and endangered species.

Policy Work

To address flooding, GRHA is working with local leadership to tackle the issue of floodplain rise and the filling of the floodplain and develop a regional approach for managing flood losses while protecting and restoring benefits of floodplains. We look to grow public awareness of the importance of the Confluence and provide a voice for landowners, agriculture, the duck clubs and Confluence hunters. GRHA will use policy and litigation to support our mission to directly combat the commercial development of the 100-year Confluence flood plain.

Supporters of the Easement Program

Charlie Hager

President and COO for C. Hager & Sons Hinge Manufacturing Company

"It is vital to protect the critical migration habitat of Raccoon Ranch in perpetuity - especially as it relates to the abundant spring migration habitat on the property,” explained Charlie Hager, President and Chief Operating Officer for C. Hager & Sons Hinge Manufacturing Company. “The more of us in the Confluence who take the step to protect the wetland values of our property with a conservation easement the more we can insure that waterfowl will use the Confluence in the future.”

Garth Fort

Dardenne Club member and chairman

Garth Fort, then Dardenne Club member and chairman of the club's easement committee said, “The 22-member club voted unanimously to protect Dardenne's natural wetlands with a conservation easement, and we all feel really good in doing so. It's the most important action the club has ever taken.”

Steve Lohr

“We’re all stewards of the land. It’s our obligation and responsibility to preserve and protect this historical migration route, and that will require all ducks clubs, large and small, working together to conserve the wetland values of the Confluence. Maybe in 200 years someone will say, ‘These folks sure had some foresight!’”