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Conservation Easements

Conservation Easements at The Nature Conservancy

Not only did The Nature Conservancy play a leading role in the policy arena for conservation easements, but the organization helped pioneer the concept of conservation easements, having accepted a donation of one of the very first conservation easements, in 1961, over land at Gallup Salt Marsh in Connecticut, just 10 years after the organization's founding.

The Nature Conservancy has been primarily engaged in the use of conservation easements that directly or indirectly protect the value of land and water as habitat for native plant and animal species.

Easements can be designed to:

• Protect natural habitat from destruction by conversion to other uses such as subdivision and development
• Protect open space of varying kinds from development or other disturbance
• Protect natural habitat from destruction by intensive agriculture
• Conserve forests through limitations on forest management and development
• Preserve agriculture and grazing lands from subdivision and development
• Protect water resources by limiting disturbance of lands in the watershed
• Provide for public use and access, such as through trail easements

For more than four decades, the Conservancy has been using conservation easements to protect more of a landscape from development than could be accomplished through outright purchase.

For instance, in the mid-1970s in Montana, at the request of local landowners, the Conservancy helped build the foundation of what would become the state's enabling legislation for conservation easements. Soon after, the Conservancy accepted a donation of a conservation easement covering 1,800 acres on the Blackfoot River in Montana – the state's first conservation easement.

Today some 30,254 acres in the Blackfoot Valley are covered by conservation easements, representing 50 miles of the river made famous in Norman Maclean's book, A River Runs Through It. It is one of the most intact, unfragmented landscapes in all of Montana. Across the state, 30 years later, conservation easements now protect some 1.4 million acres.

Of the 15.4 million acres protected by the Conservancy in the United States, more than 2 million acres have been protected through conservation easements granted to the Conservancy. The Conservancy has also assisted other U.S. land trusts and public agencies with conservation easements on an additional 1.3 million acres.

The use of conservation easements by land trusts across the country and increasingly in Canada, Latin America and Australia has escalated dramatically in the past decade. Today conservation easements are one of the most popular conservation tools employed by land trusts.

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.