Background.   NRCS holds title to or enforcement rights on more than 23,000 easements, providing protection to more than 4.9 million acres nationwide. Monitoring of these easements and 30-year contracts is required annually to ensure that the terms and conditions established in the easement deeds and 30-year contracts are adhered to and comply with financial accountability reporting requirements. Monitoring policy for all stewardship land and non-stewardship land easements and 30-year contracts is published in 440-CPM-527-P.

Easement and 30-year contract condition determination and reporting are required annually. Condition is determined automatically in the National Easement Staging Tool (NEST) based on the responses from the “Annual Monitoring Worksheet” that are entered and saved in NEST.     

Explanation.  To facilitate the completion of annual easement and 30-year contract monitoring and condition determination, it is recommended that by March 31, 2021, States should have at least 30 percent of their monitoring and the subsequent data entry into NEST completed. By June 30, 2021, States should have 60 percent of their monitoring and the subsequent data entry into NEST completed. By the published NEST shutdown date, States are required to have completed 100 percent of required monitoring and subsequent NEST data entry. State Conservationists’ completion of required annual monitoring and NEST data entry by September 27, 2021, will be evaluated by Regional Conservationists as part of performance management.

States are required to follow the monitoring schedule for both stewardship and non-stewardship land easements and 30-year contracts as outlined in 440-CPM-527-P, “Stewardship Lands Monitoring Schedule.”

Documentation of the completed “Annual Monitoring Worksheet” must be filled out and uploaded as an electronic copy under the “Events” document tab or the “Documents” page in NEST. In addition, a hard copy of the “Annual Monitoring Worksheet” may be filed in the official administrative six-part case file maintained in the State office.