Public policy plays a major role in soil conservation for both public and private lands. Although the principal responsibility for soil conservation lies with those who use the land, the public has assumed a joint responsibility with both landowners and users by sharing the costs of conservation. The public, in ture, requires that certain standards be met in exchange for public conservation funding. In simple terms, tax money collected from the general citizenry is provided for soil conservation through government programs in a joint public-private partnership. This partnership evolved in the 1930s in the United States and continues to the present (Napier, 1990).