Managing Conservation Easements in Perpetuity - Environmental ...

Violation policies should contain
a prohibition against allowing
private inurement and impermissible
private benefit to arise from
a violation resolution.
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trust’s mistakes. Identifying appropriate mitigating circumstances is
an important part of your land trust’s violation resolution policy. In
developing or refining your land trust’s policy, you should also discuss
how much weight to give to mitigating circumstances or how this will
be determined.
Additional requirements. The violation policy should include additional
requirements, such as compliance with the organization’s conflict of
interest policy, funder requirements and mission, as described by the
land trust’s philosophy statement on easement violation resolution.
Other items the land trust may wish to address in its policy (or in the
procedures) include:
• Whether the land trust will require landowners to reimburse
the organization for the costs of enforcement or defense
• Precedents (is each violation handled on a case-by-case basis or
do they create precedents?)
• The role of the board and chain of decision-making
• A system to learn from violations and collect data
• Violation prevention strategies, tools and techniques
• Who, how, whether and when to address media, neighbor or
other public inquiries about violations and violation response
• When the land trust’s attorney should be contacted and the
attorney’s role in violation resolution
Whatever form your policy takes, the land trust must ensure that all
resolutions are legally permissible and consistent with the conservation
purposes and documented original grantor intent. Your policy
should also contain a prohibition against allowing private inurement
and impermissible private benefit to arise from a violation resolution.
Resolving Violations
Procedures for enforcement of easements vary among land trusts, and
examples can be found in the Sample Documents section on page 348.
Land trusts typically follow seven steps when addressing a potential
violation. The order of the steps may vary slightly depending on the
circumstances, but most land trusts:
1. Identify a potential violation
2. Document the potential violation
3. Review the documentation
Managing Conservation Easements in Perpetuity