Beneficial Public Values - Conservation values to be protected and enhanced on the PG&E watershed lands under PG&E’s Land Conservation Commitment. These values include the protection of the natural habitat of fish, wildlife, and plants; the preservation of open space; outdoor recreation by the general public; sustainable forestry; agricultural uses; and, historic values.

​

Conservation – The preservation of land predominantly in its natural, scenic, agricultural, historical, forested, or open space condition.

​

Conservation Easement – A perpetual legal agreement between a landowner and a qualified organization that restricts future activities on the land in order to retain the land predominantly in its natural, scenic, historical, agricultural, forested, or open-space condition.

​

Enhancement – An improvement in the quality of a Beneficial Public Value on the land. Examples of an enhancement could include enhanced management such as biological or cultural resource surveys and developing a resource management plan or improving the quality of wildlife habitat by removing invasive weeds; or physical enhancements such as constructing recreational trails. 

​

Donee - An entity that receives fee title to, or holds a conservation easement on, the PG&E watershed lands. Under the PG&E Settlement Agreement, the watershed lands are to be donated in fee simple to public entities or qualified nonprofit conservation organizations, and/or made subject to conservation easements held by qualified entities.

​

Fee Title – Also called fee simple title. Ownership of land with the power to transfer by deed or by will and which includes all appurtenances to the land, subject to any rights retained by the donor or conveyed by means of an easement.

​

PG&E's Land Conservation Commitment – A key provision of the PG&E Settlement Agreement, the Land Conservation Commitment establishes the purpose and provides funding to ensure that the Watershed Lands are conserved for a broad range of Beneficial Public Values. The Land Conservation Commitment will be accomplished by placing permanent conservation easements or equivalent protections on the lands and by making certain lands available for fee title donation to qualified public agencies, nonprofit conservation organizations, or recognized California tribes.

​

Land Conservation Partner – An organization that works with the fee title owner and/or the conservation easement holder on donated lands to perform activities that preserve or enhance the Beneficial Public Values

​

Land Conservation Plan – Establishes the framework and management objectives for the permanent protection of more than 140,000 acres of PG&E’s watershed lands guided by the six Beneficial Public Values . Volumes I and II of the Land Conservation Plan were adopted by the Stewardship Council in November 2007. In Volume I of the plan, the overall framework is established, including legal requirements, the planning processes, methodologies, public involvement and regulatory processes. Volume II of the plan organizes the lands by watershed into 47 planning units to provide more detail regarding the beneficial public values, existing conditions, management objectives, measures, and conceptual plans for each planning unit. Volume III of the plan will consist of a series of Land Conservation and Conveyance Plans to be adopted by the Stewardship Council and recommended to PG&E.

​

Land Conservation and Conveyance Plan – Formerly referred to as the 'Volume III Disposition Packages', the LCCPs will describe the land conservation and conveyance measures proposed for each planning unit, cluster of parcels, or parcel, and together will comprise Volume III of the Land Conservation Plan. The LCCP will describe the donees and include the terms of the conservation easement and other relevant agreements . The LCCP may also address a number of items related to implementation, such as lot (parcel) splits, physical enhancements to be implemented, hazardous materials issues, an analysis of tax neutrality with respect to affected counties, long term monitoring, and an implementation schedule.

​

Land Conservation Program – A program within the Stewardship Council that is dedicated to facilitating the implementation of the Land Conservation Plan .

​

Pilot Project - Beginning in 2008, the Stewardship Council initiated work on the development of Land Conservation and Conveyance Plans for four of the 47 planning units referred to as 'pilots'. The key objective of the process was to identify organizations best suited to take on the long term stewardship of the lands, to develop plans that included objectives and measures to protect and enhance the Beneficial Public Values within each planning unit, and to apply and modify as appropriate the steps developed for the pilots in processing subsequent planning units. The four planning units selected as pilot projects were:

​

• Bucks Lake, Plumas County

• Doyle Springs, Tulare County

• Kennedy Meadows, Tuolumne County

• McArthur Swamp, Shasta County

​

These four planning units were chosen because they each exhibit a unique set of land use and conservation challenges, as well as being well distributed geographically across the watershed lands.

​

Preservation – Maintaining the natural state of the land, with considerations for fish and wildlife habitat and resources, open space values, and other environmental and social values.

​

Round 1 Planning Units – In the summer of 2009, following the initiation of four pilot projects, the Stewardship Council began work on the development of Land Conservation and Conveyance Plans for an additional 11 of the remaining 43 planning units.

​

Stewardship Council – A private, nonprofit foundation responsible for developing and implementing recommendations and a plan for the permanent protection of over 140,000 acres of watershed lands currently owned by Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and located primarily in the Sierra and Cascade mountain ranges.

​

Tax Neutrality – The requirement of PG&E’s Land Conservation Commitment that an appropriate entity (which may be PG&E, the Stewardship Council, a donee, or a third party) provide property tax revenue, another equivalent revenue source, or a lump sum payment so that land transfers, when evaluated over the totality of all transfers made in each affected county, do not result in a net loss of property tax revenues for that county.

​