Myth: Private organizations should get free use of public lands for conservation purposes.

Fact: A range of factors determine if and how much it costs to encumber public lands.

When private entities, including private conservation organizations, encumber public lands and resources lying within ocean and coastal waters there is often a requirement that some sort of payment be made to the government agency responsible for managing the lands and resources. The payment is normally justified as compensation to the public for the private use and enjoyment of public lands or resources. Such is normally the case when a marina operator, for example, acquires a lease of publicly-owned submerged lands and pays annual or monthly rents. Similar payments may or may not be required of private organizations when they acquire ocean and coastal lands and resources for conservation purposes.

• Free use available: It is common for local, state, or federal laws to identify uses of public lands that can be authorized for free or at reduced rental rates. For example, when lessees in Washington State provide public access as part of their lease activities, they may qualify for lease rent reductions. Agencies may also have the ability to negotiate rental rates. In this latter situation, if the agencies are proponents of the conservation project, they may be willing to negotiate free rent. Finally, if the lands and resources are already owned by a private entity, they may wish to donate the lands and resources to conservation organizations for free due to philanthropic, philosophical, and financial purposes. In any case, it is worth investigating if there are options to obtain free use of the lands and resources.
• Better to pay: In some cases, even if conservation organizations could qualify for or could negotiate free rent for the encumbrance of public lands, they may still choose to pay a fee. If organizations want to promote conservation as a legitimate use of public lands that is similar to many traditional uses (i.e., marinas, aquaculture, and mooring fields) and want to compete fairly and equally with the traditional uses, then organizations may want to pay similar rents and fees as the traditional uses. Also, many agencies have fiduciary responsibilities and need to generate revenues from the lands and resources they manage. A final consideration for conservation organizations is that if they receive free or discounted rents for using public lands, other users (such as for development, wetland mitigation, and contaminated sediment disposal) may want to be treated similarly. Clearly, private uses of public lands and resources for purposes that degrade the marine environment should, at a minimum, be paying fees for doing so.
• Legal requirements: There may be no escaping payment for the private use of public lands and resources for any purpose, including conservation. In many states and countries, if there is any type of private encumbrance that excludes other public or private entities from using a site or resource, then payments must be made according to law. Often times, the processes for determining the amounts and timing of payments are also determined by law.

• Water-dependent rent: When rents or other forms of payments are made by organizations for the use of public lands and resources lying within ocean and coastal waters for conservation purposes, the fees should be considered water-dependent as opposed to nonwater-dependent. Water-dependent activities are generally considered activities that need to be located over, on, or in the water (i.e., marinas, mooring fields, and aquaculture). Whereas nonwater-dependent activities do not require a waterfront location, but only desire one (i.e., restaurants, bars, and hotels). In many states within the United States, water-dependent activities are preferred over nonwater-dependent activities and, as such, receive rent discounts.