Page 64 - Agenda 21

Page 64 of 121

20. LAND CONSERVATION TRUSTS AND EASEMENTS

“The nation's 1,700 land trusts work with communities to acquire and manage land for the purpose of
permanent conservation and then steward the land for public benefit. The land trusts are on the front
lines with their local communities to help them save America's land heritage. Over the years, land
trusts have been extraordinarily successful, having protected more than 37 million acres of land,
according to the National Land Trust Census.”
http://www.landtrustalliance.org/conservation/landowners/how-do-you-benefit-from-land-
conservation

“Initially, conservation easements - which allow landowners to hold on to and use their property but
permanently remove development rights in exchange for tax benefits - seemed to hold some promise
as an unobtrusive, effective means of preserving open space while upholding private stewardship,
private initiative and the rights of private property owners. Land trusts, the organizations that manage
the easements, tended originally to be small, nonpolitical, and independent of government
involvement.

Over time, however, as numerous land trusts have grown in size and number, so have their association
- and influence - with government. This has been the case particularly with the large, national
organizations that obtain enormous sums from federal funding. For many of these land trusts, what
used to be a close working relationship with private landowners has been replaced by a closer
relationship with government agencies. Increasingly too, the mission has evolved from protecting
open lands through private stewardship to aiding government agencies in acquiring private
lands. In these troubling arrangements, land trusts have operated more like government agents,
acquiring easements from private landowners, only to turn around and quietly sell them - sometimes
for a profit - to state or federal governments.

These methods certainly are not practiced by all land trusts, but nor are they isolated cases….
easements, absent reforms, could evolve into the prevailing method for government to shift lands
unobtrusively from private to public control under a pretense of private stewardship…. While the
permanency may hold appeal to those property owners who see value in shielding their land from
developers forever, particularly when sweetened with a significant tax deduction, it could prove to be
detrimental to the public over the long-term as economic and ecological factors change our definitions
of what should be preserved and why. The tax incentives themselves also are problematic, developing
into what some critics call a "tax haven" and "tax bonanza" for the wealthy landowner. Although the
tax benefits were intended to aid the land-rich, cash-poor farmer or small business, struggling because
of exorbitant property and estate taxes to hold on to their land, the federal tax benefits
disproportionately favor wealthy landowners.”