Conservation Easement Increases Acres Protected

COTTONWOOD FALLS, KS - Ranchers Bill and Maggie Haw of Shawnee Mission, Kansas, recently donated a conservation easement on 3,120 acres of native tallgrass prairie to The Nature Conservancy. The conservation easement which protects land located south of Cottonwood Falls in Chase County borders the Kansas Flint Hills Scenic Byway. Last year, the Haws also donated a conservation easement to Conservancy on more than 10,400 acres, the largest in Kansas history. This latest easement brings the Haw’s total contribution of donated conservation easements to over 13,500 acres.

Native grasslands, especially tallgrass prairies, are symbolic of Kansas’ heritage. Tallgrass prairie is the most altered major habitat type in North America, in terms of acres lost. Yet, here in Kansas, a significant swath of tallgrass prairie—the Flint Hills landscape—remains relatively intact. The Flint Hills landscape represents the last opportunity to preserve an intact and functioning tallgrass prairie ecosystem. The Nature Conservancy has identified this landscape as a priority for conservation and is actively working here to maintain the unfragmented nature of the Flint Hills and to enhance wildlife habitat.

The Nature Conservancy is using conservation easements to help protect this last landscape-scale expression of tallgrass prairie. A conservation easement is a legally recorded agreement between the landowner and a land trust that limits in perpetuity a property’s uses in order to protect its conservation values. Because the land remains in private ownership, with the remainder of the rights intact, property protected by an easement continues to provide property taxes and other economic benefits. Only incompatible uses of the land are restricted. Grazing, burning, and other ecologically compatible agricultural uses are typically allowed.

Over 97 percent of Kansas land is privately held, thus the Conservancy must reach out to private landowners, like Bill and Maggie Haw, in order to benefit the larger landscape for future generations. The recent Haw donation brings the total Flint Hills easement acreage held by the Conservancy to 20,368 acres.

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.