Managing Conservation Easements in Perpetuity - Environmental ...

1.
4. Determine if it is a violation, and if yes, its severity
5. Identify potential mitigating factors and choose the appropriate
enforcement response
6. Work with the landowner to address the violation
7. Record the final resolution and lessons learned
You can write violation resolution procedures as shown below in a
narrative format, or you can depict them visually in a flowchart. For
example, the Vermont Land Trust chooses to depict its enforcement
procedures in a flowchart with “yes” or “no” decision points to direct
the course of action (see page 364). For other land trusts, the visual
method may not provide enough explanation of the steps. When
developing your violation resolution procedures, each land trust should
evaluate how much detail and explanation is appropriate given the
organization’s unique situation.
Identify a potential violation
Land trusts discover most easement violations through a regular and
frequent program of easement monitoring. When conducting an
annual monitoring visit, be sure to inspect the intensely used areas
of the conserved land every year. Your land trust’s monitoring protocols
must ensure that the monitor visits every portion of each parcel of
conserved land on a regular cycle, so you can observe whether there are
any boundary issues, remote trash dumps and cabins, timber violations
or other issues that might be a violation which are located outside of the
intensely used areas. Highly sensitive ecological areas may need to be
visited every year regardless of how difficult they are to reach. It is also
a good idea to visit landowners who have a history of misunderstandings
or violations more often than the standard annual monitoring visit.
For more information about monitoring conservation easements, see
the Land Trust Alliance course “Conservation Easement Stewardship.”
Sometimes easement violations are uncovered in other ways, some of
which are discussed here. Violations may be reported by third parties
(such as neighbors or land trust members) who observe an activity on
the easement land. It is important to educate all your volunteers and
staff to be alert for potential violations when they are not “on duty.”
All reports of violations should be checked immediately by either calling
the landowner to inquire about recent activities (while taking care
to not accuse anyone of violating the conservation easement) or by
visiting the property within the week, depending on the nature of the
report.
Violation Resolution and Easement Defense 277