Managing Conservation Easements in Perpetuity - Environmental ...

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the landowner on the land, you can have a dialogue that will
help your land trust anticipate a landowner’s needs, answer
questions, review easement terms and discuss the future
of the conserved land to prevent violations and build good
relationships.
3. Successor owners of easement land do not have the long
history and relationship with your land trust that the original
grantors had; therefore, to prevent violations and build a
good relationship with these owners, you should personally
meet every successor owner and help him or her understand
your land trust and the conservation easement. You also must
understand the new landowner’s needs. Successor owners may
not have land ownership experience and some may not have
as strong a conservation ethic as the original landowners, so it
is important to dedicate the time and resources to help these
landowners understand their easement and your land trust’s
responsibility.
4. By assisting landowners to be the best possible stewards of
their land, you promote a community land ethic and also
build good relationships that will help your land trust prevent
violations and more easily address those violations that do
occur.
5. Your land trust should articulate how it views landowners
and how it wants landowners to view the land trust. You also
need to determine how your organization balances landowners’
needs for their land with your land trust’s obligation to
uphold the easement’s purposes and the public interest. Your
stewardship philosophy is one good way to articulate these
issues to landowners.
6. Your land trust’s written violation policy and procedures will
guide you through the difficulties of violation resolution. Your
land trust should adopt and implement a violation policy and
procedure before its first violation, so that you do not struggle
with violation resolution and the creation of a policy at the
same time. As you learn more over time, your land trust can
refine its policy.
7. You need to follow your land trust’s written violation policy.
Doing so will ensure your land trust treats all landowners fairly
and consistently. You can follow the policy and still act with
flexibility and adapt to different circumstances — policies do
not need to be rigid. In fact, they work better if they include
appropriate flexibility to deal with unforeseen events and differ-
Managing Conservation Easements in Perpetuity