Protect Your Land for Future Generations

Image Gallery Don't let your land lose ground. Save valuable space for family and community with a conservation easement. PIXART DESIGN/ISTOCKPHOTO

You’ll never forget the special places where you connected with nature as a child. Maybe it was that creek bank, or that hillside or that grove of trees. For me, it was a field filled with wildflowers and adventure north of my grandma’s strawberry patch that now only exists as a memory. Developers turned it into a middle school. But the good news is if you or someone in your family owns such a special place, a conservation easement is a legal way to protect and preserve it so future generations can enjoy it just as you have.

Ease What?

A conservation easement is a voluntary legal agreement between a landowner and a land trust or government agency. For conservation purposes, an easement permanently prohibits future development of a property by limiting the use of the land.

Take, for example, Fred and Vera Shield who wanted to protect their 6,700-acre ranch from the Austin, Texas, city limits and preserve it for their daughter and son-in-law. So, they established conservation easements that protect an aquifer recharge area and restrict residential or commercial development on their property. For more stories of easements in action, visit this Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas resource.

Urban areas are expanding at about twice the rate of population growth, so the need for checks and balances is growing. According to a 2005 census, local, regional and national land trusts conserve 37 million acres throughout the United States, a 54 percent increase from 2000. Because protecting land is a long-term, high-effort commitment, the best approach to achieving your family or community’s conservation goals is to work with an existing land trust. Land trusts are non-governmental, entrepreneurial organizations that work to protect land for public benefit. An organization may acquire land in a variety of ways and the agreement is perpetual, binding the current owner and even future owners to case-by-case restrictions. Under a land trust’s supervision, conservation easements protect a wide range of land values from development that would negatively affect those values.