Conservation Easements

Conservation Easements (CE)’s allow property owners to legally transfer –sell, or donate certain landowner specified property rights in order to conserve other rights such as recreation, agriculture, or natural resource functions, and to do so without transferring real estate ownership. Similar to other types of real estate easements such as for utilities and roads, a CE stays with the deed of the property no matter who owns it. Unlike utilities and road easements, a CE does not have to provide access to the property.

As legal tools, CE’s are sold or granted to land trusts, local or state government wildlife agencies, parks and open space districts, or which then monitor, and sometimes assist in managing the property to meet conservation goals.

Common property rights that owners sell in CE’s to grantee organizations are sub-division, development and building, timber harvest, hunting and fishing rights. Common property rights that owners donate to grantee organizations in CE’s are ecosystem services, watershed and natural systems functions, wildlife and protected species habitat. Common property rights landowners reserve within CE’s are building envelopes for residences, barns, shops, and uses such as agriculture, specified timber harvest or recreation.

Although each CE will be different, they all have one thing in common; because a CE changes a property deed, it triggers a re-assessment of the property, sometimes lowering its tax-base. This can be a benefit to families wishing to pass on their land to heirs, and to forest-based businesses.

When an environmental advocacy organization finds a conservation opportunity that would benefit by crafting a conservation easement, it can facilitate the CE by providing scientific and legal services, work on the ground for management and restoration, and money. In this way, for example, the Nature Conservancy coordinated a CE in New England in which it provided $50 million in financing to a struggling paper company. In exchange, the Nature Conservancy acquired 41,000 acres of protected forest habitat, and a conservation easement for sustainable working forest management on an additional 200,000 acres of adjacent forest.

In this category you will find examples of Conservation Easements in Sierra and similar forests.