Restoring Shoreline Habitat: Lessons from Minnesota DNR Grant Program

1. You Want to Do What to Our Shoreline? Lessons Learned in Running the Minnesota DNR Shoreland Habitat Restoration Grant Program John Hiebert MN DNRShoreland Habitat Program

2. Shoreline Habitat Program • Started in 1999 with a budget of $200,000 • Reimbursement grant program covering: • 75% of project cost, remainder provided by landowner through in-kind cash and labor • Projects on private land must restore 75% of the frontage with an average buffer width of 25 feet • Only use local origin plants that are native to the county the project is located in • Projects on public and private land • In 2003 raised grants to $375,000 per year

3. Original Program Goals • Provide technical advice and information to landowners • Encourage landowners to restore disturbed shorelines. • Establish demonstration sites around the developed areas of the State of Minnesota.

4. Success!

5. It was easy with 12 projects … not so much with 500

6. Problems Encountered • Once a project has been installed the work had just begun. • Not enough emphasis on maintaining sites. • Little time was available for technical advice and contact with groups outside of grant projects. • Lack of follow-up on sites • Projects became more and more complicated.

7. Research • Needed to assess how effective the program was in all aspects. • How well are we establishing plants and are people actually doing this on there own? • Relating effectiveness of restored shorelines at providing fish and wildlife habitat and improving water quality • Understanding the social barriers that keep people from maintaining natural shorelines or restoring disturbed ones and developing successful strategies to address these issues.

8. Losing our Lakes? An Assessment of the Human Dimensions of Lakeshore Landowner Shoreland Management Edgar Rudberg and David Fulton University of Minnesota MN Cooperative Research Unit December, 2011

9. Methodology: Focus Groups • 4 focus groups throughout Minnesota • 9 questions • 7-10 participants/group • Saturation reached • Inform survey

10. Focus Group Results • Concerns: recreational use, neighbor perceptions, cost, maintenance, line of sight • Positives: water quality, wildlife, seclusion • Cake and eat it too: Mixed use

11. Methodology: Survey • Behavioral variables – Attitude toward behavior • Incentives: approaches& economic • Assessed survey respondents current riparian land use and how that influenced responses • Demographics

12. Methodology: Sampling • Sampling • 4 ecotypes within state • Different vegetation= different attitudes? • Lakes selected with 50 < lake homes < 250 • Sampling size of ~1,000/ecotype • 3 rounds of surveys (Dillman)

13. Applying the Integrative Model of Behavior • Behavioral beliefs: • Cost • Maintenance • Restriction of recreation • Increase water quality Behavioral Belief Attitude towards the behavior Barriers • Normative evaluations: • Friends • Family • Neighbors Normative Belief and intention to comply I’m going to restore a buffer Having a buffer Subjective norm Efficacy Evaluation Plant ID Obtain info Buy plants Maintenance Efficacy beliefs Efficacy evaluation (Fishbein & Yzer, 2003)

14. Behavior Intention Matrix Fishbein, Yzer (2003) Using Theory to Design Health Behavior Interventions. Communication Theory 13(2) p 164-183

15. Results: IBM

16. Final Model

17. Changes in Messaging

18. Minimize Shoreland Impacts but Still Enjoy the Lake

19. Access to the LakeWhile Leaving Some for Wildlife and Water Quality

20. Financial Considerations

23. Conclusions from Survey • 8% need little or no intervention • 19% inclined to restore buffer • Assess barriers • 51% potential target for communications strategy • beauty of buffers • water quality improvement • ability to keep up with maintenance • Most important referent group: MNDNR • Efficacy belief: keeping up with maintenance • Incentives: • One time payment $500= additional 23% • Yearly payment of $100= additional 30%

24. Results From Those with Buffers • Communication strategy? • Fight the “bad” or support the “good”? • Understanding those at risk for removal of their existing buffer • Information seeking of those with buffers

25. Chi-Square Attitudes and Buffers • The odds that those with positive attitudes towards buffers are approximately 2 ½ times more likely to have a buffer than those with a negative attitude toward buffers.

26. Attitude Towards Buffers and Beliefs

27. Recreational Uses of Property

28. Take Away • People with buffers believed buffers created habitat and improved privacy • Potential to raise value of buffered shores to those who have them through communicating risk to wildlife viewing, scenery and loss of privacy • Reward Good behavior on shorelines – Lake Friendly Development Awards.

29. Final Conclusions • Survey useful in understanding restoration behavioral intention and audience segmentation • Focus on water quality and beauty and downplay loss of recreation • Let landowners know they can have a buffer and still enjoy the lake • Those with buffers, focus on risk to wildlife, scenery and privacy • Have a varied message when meeting with landowners as a variety of issues impact why a person does or doesn’t have a buffer

30. Contact Information • John Hiebert • MNDNR Division of Fish and Wildlife • 500 Lafayette Road • St Paul MN 55155 • 651-259-5212 • john.hiebert@state.mn.us