Conservation Easements in Comanche County, Kansas

The Nature Conservancy's Red Hills Initiative: a real, funded easement program

The Nature Conservancy runs a program specifically named the Red Hills Initiative, focused on the Red Hills (Gypsum Hills) region spanning Comanche, Clark, and Barber Counties -- a landscape TNC describes as rich grazing land, pristine streams, and remaining native grassland worth protecting at a large scale. The Conservancy launched the effort with a roughly $1-million fund earmarked specifically to acquire conservation easements from private ranchers in the region. A conservation easement here works as it does elsewhere: a legally recorded agreement between the landowner and TNC that limits certain future uses of the property in perpetuity to protect its grassland and habitat value, while the land stays in private ownership, continues generating property tax revenue, and can still be grazed, ranched, or sold subject to the easement's terms.

The initiative isn't limited to easements alone. TNC's stated priority in the Red Hills is addressing the spread of eastern redcedar -- locally called the "green glacier" -- an invasive tree that degrades native grassland and rangeland productivity if left unchecked, and the program funds prescribed burning and cost-share cedar-removal work for ranchers who want to restore grassland condition without necessarily placing a permanent easement on their land. A Comanche County rancher interested in any of these options -- an easement, a prescribed burn, or brush-management cost-share -- can reach the program directly through TNC's own named contact, Tim Marshall, at tim.marshall@tnc.org.

A separate federal program gives this county priority standing

Separately from TNC's own initiative, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service runs the Southern High Plains Initiative, a Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) project with The Nature Conservancy as lead partner, aimed at defending and expanding core native-grassland acreage under the national Great Plains Grasslands Biome Framework. NRCS has identified 33 counties in west-central Kansas as eligible for this program -- and Comanche County is one of a smaller subset given explicit application priority, named alongside Logan, Gove, Scott, Clark, Kiowa, and Barber Counties in Kansas and Woods County, Oklahoma. That priority status is a real, current, and favorable position for a Comanche County landowner or operator to be in when applying, not a generic statewide offer available equally everywhere.

Practices funded through this program for enrolled landowners include prescribed grazing, brush management, and other grassland-restoration work -- overlapping meaningfully with TNC's own Red Hills Initiative goals, since TNC leads both efforts. A landowner or operator interested in signing up works through the local NRCS field office rather than TNC directly for this specific program, and should ask about current fiscal-year signup dates and application requirements, since RCPP sign-up periods and funding availability change from year to year.

How to actually pursue this on Comanche County land

1. Contact Tim Marshall at tim.marshall@tnc.org for information specifically on Red Hills Initiative conservation easements, prescribed burning, or cedar-removal cost-share for Comanche County land.
2. Separately, contact your local USDA NRCS field office to ask about current Southern High Plains Initiative RCPP signup dates and application requirements, noting that Comanche County holds priority status under the program.
3. If considering a conservation easement specifically, get independent legal and tax advice before signing -- an easement is a permanent, recorded restriction on the property's future use and should be reviewed by an attorney who doesn't represent the land trust.
4. Ask directly how a specific easement or program's terms would affect future subdivision, mineral development, or resale of the property, since these vary by instrument and are not standardized across TNC's program.