Conservation Easements

What are Conservation Easements?

A conservation easement is a restriction placed on a piece of property to protect its associated resources.

The easement is either voluntarily donated or sold by the landowner and constitutes a legally binding agreement that limits certain types of uses or prevents development from taking place on the land in perpetuity while the land remains in private hands.

Conservation easements protect land for future generations while allowing owners to retain many private property rights and to live on and use their land, at the same time potentially providing them with tax benefits.

In a conservation easement, a landowner voluntarily agrees to sell or donate certain rights associated with his or her property – often the right to subdivide or develop – and a private organization or public agency agrees to hold the right to enforce the landowner's promise not to exercise those rights. In essence, the rights are forfeited and no longer exist.

An easement selectively targets only those rights necessary to protect specific conservation values, such as water quality or migration routes, and is individually tailored to meet a landowner's needs. Because the land remains in private ownership, with the remainder of the rights intact, an easement property continues to provide economic benefits for the area in the form of jobs, economic activity and property taxes.

A conservation easement is legally binding, whether the property is sold or passed on to heirs. Because use is permanently restricted, land subject to a conservation easement may be worth less on the open market than comparable unrestricted and developable parcels. Sometimes conservation easements will enable the landowner to qualify for tax benefits in compliance with Internal Revenue Service rules.

For More Information:

• Press Release: Conservancy's New York State Director Appointed to Commission Overseeing Quality of Land Conservation
  Henry Tepper, Director of The Nature Conservancy's New York Chapter, was recently appointed by the Land Trust Alliance to a new commission established to ensure the quality of land conservation.
• Press Release: Outdoor Recreation and Conservation Groups Urge Congress To Preserve Vital Conservation Tax Incentive Tool
  Two dozen leading national hunting, fishing, outdoor recreation and conservation groups have released a letter to Congress expressing their strong support for conservation tax incentives for conservation easements and highlighting the vital role easements play in virtually all outdoor recreation in the United States.
• Press Release: The Nature Conservancy Releases Legislative Proposals to Strengthen Conservation Easements
  The Nature Conservancy released a set of legislative proposals designed to strengthen the laws and regulations governing conservation easements and help end abuses of this critically important conservation tool.