Managing Conservation Easements in Perpetuity - Environmental ...

Action Plan
As a result of studying the material in this course, there are many
things that you will want to share with your land trust. The following
list of next steps and “To Do Sheet” will help you plan your strategy.
Next Steps
We recommend that you take these steps, if you have not done so
already, to apply what you have learned from this course to improve
your land trust’s operation.
• Consider drafting an overarching stewardship philosophy or
guiding principles for your land trust to guide future organizational
decisions and to share with landowners. See the Land
Trust Alliance course “Conservation Easement Stewardship”
for help.
• Choose one or two new ways you can reach out to landowners
to build relationships or improve community relations.
See the Land Trust Alliance course “Conservation Easement
Stewardship” for more information.
• Create a sequential list of the recordkeeping tasks you need to
accomplish, assign work teams and realistic completion dates
that your team agrees on. Be sure to have intermittent checkin
dates to help evaluate progress and support cross-team
collaboration.
• If your land trust does not have access to a litigator, find one.
Ask your board, donors and funders for names of local litigators
whom they respect. Establish a selection committee and
draft selection criteria that you all agree upon before interviewing
the candidates. Be sure to discuss free or reduced-rate
services. Discuss your stewardship, recordkeeping, violation and
amendment philosophies with the prospective litigators. Then
decide whom to retain and create a good working relationship
with that person. For information on interviewing and selecting
an attorney, see the Land Trust Alliance course “Acquiring
Land and Conservation Easements.”
• After you have retained a litigator, take your recordkeeping
system, amendment and violation resolution policies and
procedures and at least two full project files to that person for
review and recommendations.
Action Plan
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