Managing Conservation Easements in Perpetuity - Environmental ...

Eternity is a long time.
Especially towards the end. — Woody Allen
Living Up to Our Obligations
Forever is only as long as landowners and the public have confidence
in the integrity and competence of the land trust, its staff and volunteers.
The permanence of conservation easements depends on the
community’s support of land conservation. This course discusses how
to earn and keep public confidence and landowner support through
the conscientious management of your organization’s conservation
easements, ensuring that they survive forever.
Landowners who want to leave a legacy for the future by granting
a conservation easement usually do so because they love their land.
Many land trusts work with three or more generations of a family who
have lived on and from that land or have grown to see themselves as
stewards in the time they have owned it. Their lives are interwoven
with the growth of the grass and trees, crops and weather cycles and
the lives of the creatures that share the land with them. When a landowner
signs a conservation easement with tears of gratitude in his eyes
because he knows your land trust will uphold that legacy, you have
just made a commitment to that family to ensure that the property’s
conservation values survive forever.
How does your land trust plan to live up to that obligation forever?
Will that family still be proud to have granted an easement to your
land trust 10, 50 or 500 years later? Will your financial supporters
continue to be proud of their investment? Will the new owners who
come to live, play or work on that protected land also be delighted
that the original owner conserved the land? How will your land trust
decide to invest its resources in upholding its obligation to enforce and
defend the easement in perpetuity? How will your land trust make
decisions about changes in circumstances over time? How will you
document those decisions so that the people who come after you know
what happened and why? How will your organization navigate the
Introduction
Conservation values or attributes:
The features or characteristics of
a property that provide important
benefits to the public and make
the property worthy of permanent
conservation.