Conservation Easement Outcomes at Multiple Scales

Conservation Easement Outcomes at Multiple Scales PDF Author: Adena Ruth Rissman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Conservation Easement Outcomes at Multiple Scales

Conservation Easement Outcomes at Multiple Scales PDF Author: Adena Ruth Rissman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description


Landowner's Guide to Conservation Easements

Landowner's Guide to Conservation Easements PDF Author: Steven Bick
Publisher: Kendall Hunt
ISBN: 9780757502279
Category : Conservation easements
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Conservation Outcomes and Social Relations

Conservation Outcomes and Social Relations PDF Author: Adena R. Rissman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Book Description
Conservation easements have increased dramatically but their social and ecological outcomes are largely unknown. To examine the influence of social relations and institutional structure on easement design and conservation outcomes, we compared two regions where land trusts hold conservation easements protecting large areas of private rangeland: Lassen Foothills, California, and Malpai Borderlands, Arizona and New Mexico. We conducted interviews with landowners, land trust staff, and public agency employees, and analyzed easement documents and monitoring reports. Social relations and organization goals influenced easement terms and their direct effects on land use. Furthermore, easements had important indirect conservation-relevant outcomes resulting from increased land management resources, financial incentives, and altered relations among landowners, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Easements entail a combination of collaborative and regulatory approaches, and their embedded social relations are important for conservation outcome assessment. These findings have significant implications for how conservation programs are designed, monitored, enforced, and evaluated.

The Conservation Contributions of Conservation Easements

The Conservation Contributions of Conservation Easements PDF Author: Adena R. Rissman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 25

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Book Description
Conservation easements have emerged as an important tool for land trusts and government agencies aiming to conserve private land in the United States. Despite the increase in public investment in conservation easement acquisitions, little is known about their conservation outcomes, particularly at a landscape scale. The nine-county San Francisco Bay Area exemplifies a complex conservation context: 190 organizations hold 24% of the land base in some type of protection status. Using a detailed protected lands database, we compared the contributions of conservation easements and fee-simple protected areas to ecological, agricultural, and public recreation benefits. We found that conservation easements were more likely to conserve grasslands, oak woodlands, and agricultural land, whereas fee-simple properties were more likely to conserve chaparral and scrub, redwoods, and urban areas. Conservation easements contributed to open space connectivity but were unlikely to be integrated into local land-use plans or provide public recreation. In particular, properties held by land trusts were less likely to allow for public recreation than were public lands. Conservation easements held by land trusts and special districts complemented fee-simple lands and provided greater conservation of some ecological communities and agricultural lands than fee-simple properties. Spatial databases of protected areas that include conservation easements are necessary for conservation planning and assessment.

The Changing Landscape of Conservation Easements

The Changing Landscape of Conservation Easements PDF Author: Amy Wilson Morris
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Protecting the Land

Protecting the Land PDF Author: Julie Ann Gustanski
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 612

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Book Description
A conservation easement is a legal agreement between a property owner and a conservation organization, generally a private nonprofit land trust, that restricts the type and amount of development that can be undertaken on that property. Conservation easements protect land for future generations while allowing owners to retain property rights, at the same time providing them with significant tax benefits. Conservation easements are among the fastest growing methods of land preservation in the United States today. Protecting the Land provides a thoughtful examination of land trusts and how they function, and a comprehensive look at the past and future of conservation easements. The book: provides a geographical and historical overview of the role of conservation easements analyzes relevant legislation and its role in achieving community conservation goals examines innovative ways in which conservation easements have been used around the country considers the links between social and economic values and land conservation Contributors, including noted tax attorney and land preservation expert Stephen Small, Colorado's leading land preservation attorney Bill Silberstein, and Maine Coast Heritage Trust's general counsel Karin Marchetti, describe and analyze the present status of easement law. Sharing their unique perspectives, experts including author and professor of geography Jack Wright, Dennis Collins of the Wildlands Conservancy, and Chuck Roe of the Conservation Trust of North Carolina offer case studies that demonstrate the flexibility and diversity of conservation easements. Protecting the Land offers a valuable overview of the history and use of conservation easements and the evolution of easement-enabling legislation for professionals and citizens working with local and national land trusts, legal advisors, planners, public officials, natural resource mangers, policymakers, and students of planning and conservation.

Nature-friendly Land Use Practices at Multiple Scales

Nature-friendly Land Use Practices at Multiple Scales PDF Author: Rebecca Lynn Kihslinger
Publisher: Environmental Law Institute
ISBN: 9781585761401
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
"This unique book is organized around eight detailed case studies of private land developers, local governments, and public agencies that have worked across jurisdictional and ecological boundaries to effectively address habitat conservation. The book includes two essays by leading conservation biologists who link planning at scale with sound land use decisions." --Book Jacket.

An Empirical Study of Modification and Termination of Conservation Easements

An Empirical Study of Modification and Termination of Conservation Easements PDF Author: Gerald Korngold
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The acquisition of conservation easements by nonprofit organizations (“NPOs”) over the past twenty-five years has revolutionized the preservation of American land. Recently, however, legislatures, courts, practitioners, and commentators have debated whether and how conservation easements should be modified and even terminated. The discussion has almost always been on a theoretical level without empirical grounding and has sometimes generated much heat but little light. The discussion has lacked the necessary empirical context to allow legislatures and courts to thoughtfully develop resolutions to these issues free from sloganeering and posturing. This article provides and analyzes a previously uncollected dataset that offers guidance on the appropriate rules of law for conservation easement modification. It examines policy goals in light of the data to suggest various modification rules that would be more effective than current practice. The dataset represents a significant sample of easement modifications that have been made during a six year period (2008-2013) and indicates several findings: first, modifications have actually been taking place, despite claims that conservation easements are “perpetual,” apparently indicating that NPOs need flexibility in at least some areas; most of the changes have been “minor” and have been either conservation neutral or conservation positive, though one would expect pressure for more significant alterations over time due to shifts in the environment and human needs; there is a range of types and degree of modifications to this point, suggesting that there should be a spectrum of procedural and substantive requirements for the different varieties of modifications; and, a mandate for a stand-alone, state registry of conservation easements and modifications would allow for improved policymaking. The article suggests that a doctrine that requires different procedures and substantive rules for various categories of modifications -- a sliding scale -- may yield the best, policy-based results. The work also identifies and analyzes existing doctrines -- federal tax law, specific state statutes, charitable trust doctrine, standing rules, and director liability -- that would need to be altered or clarified to adopt effective modification rules.

Saving the Ranch

Saving the Ranch PDF Author: Anthony Anella
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781559637411
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A concise and readable guide to conservation easements for ranchers, conservationists, and developers concerned with protecting the natural and scenic values of ranch lands in the western United States. Shows how ranchers can reduce estate taxes, generate and shelter income, and combine land conservation with estate planning.

Factors and Prices Affecting Colorado and Wyoming Landowners' Willingness to Accept a Conservation Easement

Factors and Prices Affecting Colorado and Wyoming Landowners' Willingness to Accept a Conservation Easement PDF Author: Lukas R. Todd
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781369234367
Category : Conservation easements
Languages : en
Pages : 74

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Book Description
As a result of in-migration, and exurban development in the Rocky Mountain west, prices for rural agricultural land have been increasing. Rural landowners are incentivized to sell or develop their land, thus fragmenting open space. Open space provides many public goods such as biodiversity, ecosystem services, scenic vistas, and various recreational opportunities. Much of the remaining open space in the continental U.S. occurs on rural agricultural land. Conservation easements (CEs) are one way to protect that privately-held open space, but the market for CEs is not well understood because CE contracts are primarily negotiated privately between land trusts and landowners. The objective of this research is to investigate what factors influence a landowner’s decision to choose a CE and the welfare benefits that a landowner gains by placing an easement on a parcel of their land. We use data gathered from the Wyoming and Colorado Landowner Survey. A random utility multinomial logit model estimates the probabilities of a landowner choosing an easement based on the attributes of the easement, and landowner. Welfare estimates, and associated confidence intervals, for the landowners’ willingness to accept were then calculated using the Krinsky and Robb procedure. Results show that landowners prefer CEs in perpetuity and that do not require public access. Landowners with a higher sense of place and community are more likely to choose an easement. We estimate that the total mean welfare benefit gained by a landowner is worth $55,217.30 per parcel of land. Our results also indicate that moving to a limited term easement (20 years) or requiring public access to the property reduces benefits by 30 or 58% respectively. Conversely, if a landowner scores one pointer higher on a scale of 1–80 on their sense of community-attachment, their welfare increases by 1.2%. These results provide important information about landowners, their preferences for CEs, and how they value different aspects of CEs that could impact transaction costs for land trusts, and public agencies conserving private lands.