The
Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration (REPI) Program, authorized by Congress,
10 U.S.C. § 2684a, allows communities and military installations to address land use encroachments and preserve military base operations by avoiding or eliminating conflicts. The REPI Program is further focused on making installations more resilient to climate change and land use conversion, both of which can restrict critical military testing and training operations. Encroachment management partnerships, called REPI Projects, are central to conservation and natural resource restoration efforts that happen to also facilitate REPI's goals. These partnerships,
facilitated differently by each service branch, help sustain military capabilities by preserving land adjacent to military installations and sharing easement acquisition costs.
Created in 2003, the REPI Program has diversified its toolkit and grown the number of projects and partnership types. To date, it has worked with more than 500 partners, including many private organizations, resulting in $1.05 billion in cost savings. Partner contributions have accounted for 47 percent of the dollars spent on the program, which has saved valuable DoD assets. Many, identified as national defense strategy priorities, have been protected for a fraction of what it would cost to build, modernize, or replace them. The REPI program is now almost 20 years old and has moved beyond just encroachment issues, addressing military readiness and environmental protection in a broader, more holistic way.
The REPI Program's interactive guide,
REPI 101, describes how the program is important to communities, land trusts, and other stakeholders. It also outlines the process to create a REPI partnership, implement a project, and facilitate stakeholder discussions, collaboration, and understanding about compatible land use issues. REPI regularly publishes
primers to advance information to all stakeholders, including resources about community involvement, collaborative land use planning, and resiliency. Additionally, the
REPI Webinar Series regularly provides information about the program, highlights best practices, and provides further guidance on the partnership process. Through FY21, DoD and its partners have spent more than $86 million on REPI projects at six Maryland installations. Learn more about the projects in these
REPI Project Profiles.
Compatibility Factors relevant to the REPI Program: Resilience, Land/Air/Sea Spaces, Water Quality, Natural Features, Land Use
Relevant Programs and Plans
Southeast Regional Partnership
for Planning and Sustainability (SERPPAS) is a six-state, state and federal
agency partnership that collaborates on resource-use decisions in support
of national defense, resource conservation, and sustainable working lands
across the southeast. Participating states include North Carolina, South
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi. SERPPAS recognizes
that long-term sustainability issues cross geographic and jurisdictional
borders and solutions must promote collaboration to achieve
2021+ SERPPAS Strategic Plan objectives.
The Western Regional Partnership (WRP) includes the DoD, federal and
state agencies, and tribal entities from Arizona, California, Colorado,
Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The WRP promotes collaboration between members
to identify common issues and goals related to military readiness, homeland
security, sustainability, and natural and cultural resource protection.
Working together, the WRP has developed strategies to address some of the
region's key issues, including the sustainability of land, wildlife corridors,
and border management
The U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Defense, and Interior created the
Sentinel Landscapes Partnership through a
Memorandum of Understanding in 2013, which was renewed in 2022. According
to the MOU, the Sentinel Landscapes Partnership enhances collaboration among
federal agencies, state and local governments, and non-governmental organizations
on “...measures and actions that will protect military lands and airspace
from incompatible development, regulatory restrictions, threats to military
installation resilience, and other forms of encroachment, while also promoting
conservation, agriculture, forestry, outdoor recreation, and the health
of both our natural resources and of the rural economy.”1 The partnership
is led at the national level by the Sentinel Landscape Federal Coordinating
Committee (SL-FCC), with representatives from each of the three founding
agencies. Other SL-FCC include USDA's Natural Resource Conservation Service
(NRCS), the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), the Farm Service Agency (FSA), the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and the Bureau of Land Management
(BLM).
The MOU defines Sentinel Landscapes as “...areas in which natural and
working lands are well suited to protect defense facilities from land use
that is incompatible with the military's mission.”2 The partnership works
with interested landowners to advance sustainable land management practices
within sentinel landscapes by connecting them with voluntary state and federal
assistance programs in support of these practices. The programs offer landowners
assistance such as tax reductions, agricultural loans, disaster relief,
educational opportunities, technical aid, and funding for conservation easements.
Learn more about federal agency support and priorities of the Sentinel Landscape
Program in this interactive diagram.
As of FY21, 10 Sentinel Landscapes have been approved across the country,
including the Middle Chesapeake Sentinel Landscape, which was established
in 2015. It protects more than 50,000 critical acres in support of wildlife,
agricultural production, and the Navy's mission along the Chesapeake Bay
and Nanticoke River, in southern Maryland.
Learn more about the Middle Chesapeake Sentinel Landscape or use the
Interactive Landscape Map to explore other Sentinel Landscapes across
the country.
1 MOU: Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Defense Department of the Interior and Department of Agriculture Establishing Governing Principles for the Sentinel Landscapes Partnership. 2022.
2 Ibid.
