One Thing Congress Agrees On: Land Conservation

Conservation Tax Incentive Championed by Majorities of Both Parties in House:  The Land Trust Alliance announced that over 300 U.S. Representatives, including nine members from Massachusetts (Representatives Olver, Neal, McGovern, Frank, Tsongas, Markey, Capuano, Lynch, and Keating) have co-sponsored the Conservation Easement Incentive Act. H.R. 1964 makes permanent a recently-expired tax incentive that helps organizations like The Trustees of Reservations work with modest income landowners to conserve important natural or historic resources in our community.

Many of the donors of Conservation Restrictions to TTOR have benefitted from this federal income tax deduction in the past, and we support the LTA's efforts to re-establish it going forward. Since the incentive expired at the end of 2011, landowners with modest incomes now receive little tax benefit from restricting what may be their family’s most valuable asset. By allowing donors to deduct a larger portion of their income over a longer period of time, H.R. 1964 will help thousands of family farmers, ranchers, and forest owners afford to conserve their land.

For more information on the tax incentive legislation visit the LTA website at http://www.landtrustalliance.org/policy/tax-matters/campaigns/the-enhanced-easement-incentivehttp://www.landtrustalliance.org/policy/tax-matters/campaigns/the-enhanced-easement-incentive.   A broad coalition of sportsmen, outdoor enthusiasts, farmers, ranchers and national conservation groups are working together to make this incentive permanent in the 112th Congress.

Growing importance of conservation restrictions as land protection tool

The recent Land Trust Alliance census shows that more land is being protected through the conservation restrictions (aka conservation easements in most parts of the country) than ownership by land conservation groups. As the graph below shows, 8.8 million acres are now protected via CRs by state and local land trusts, compared with 2.1 million acres owned. This also means that good CR stewardship (building good relationships with landowners, regular monitoring, rigorous documentation, etc) will also be more important than ever in coming years.

Newest Westport restriction is the 20,000th acre protected by Trustees of Reservations CRs!

An end-of-year conservation restriction granted to The Trustees of Reservations and Westport Land Conservation Trust pushed the total area protected by CRs across the state over the 20,000 acre mark! Congratulations to everyone in Westport for helping us achieve this important milestone.

Symposium on Conservation Easements

The Duke Journal of Law and Contemporary Problems has published a symposium edition entitled Conservation Easements: New Perspectives in an Evolving World (Volume 74 Fall 2011 Number 4). The purpose of the symposium is to "avoid restating the conventional wisdom about conservation easements and, instead, to stimulate innovative thinking and reforms in conservation easement law and practice." The symposium articles address a host of interesting and sometimes controversial issues, including the challenges posed to perpetual protection by climate change, the weaknesses in state conservation easement enabling legislation and suggested reforms, the inefficacy of the federal tax incentive program relating to conservation easement donations, the risks state legislatures pose to perpetual conservation easements, and why the doctrine of merger generally should not apply to perpetual conservation easements.

Three CR Staff Speaking Engagements in Winter 2012

The Conservation Restriction team at The Trustees of Reservations are busy year-round.  Three seasons of monitoring leads to a winter of paperwork processing, followup communications to landowners, gearing up for next season's field work, and completing our last few monitoring visits.  However, it is our quietest time of year, and so has left some time to present several seminars on our work.  These will cover CR Stewardship and Defense of CRs.  Two of these events are free, and all are open to the public. The third is part of the 22nd Annual Massachusetts Land Conservation Conference, and so requires event registration and fee.  See below for details on all three!

CR Stewardship and Defense in action during last year's very different winter!

The first presentation, titled "Defense of Conservation Restrictions," takes place on Tuesday, February 21, from 4:00-5:15 PM at UMass Amherst's Holdsworth building, featuring CR Program staff Sally Naser and Andrew Bentley.  This is hosted by the UMass Department of Environmental Conservation, part of Professor David Kittredge's "Case Studies in Conservation" graduate seminar.  Weekly speakers from conservation organizations around the state will speak about challenges and successes in private land conservation.  Though it is a UMass class, Dr. Kittredge encourages and welcomes the public to attend, so don't be shy!  This is a series not to be missed, if you're within range of Amherst.  Other weekly talks include another TTOR staff member Wendy Sweetser of the Highland Communities Initiative, (HCI), and speakers from Mass Audubon, Mass Wildlife, New England Forestry Foundation, and many others - the speaker schedule can be seen by clicking here.

The second is entitled "Introduction to CR Monitoring and Stewardship," and also takes place in the Pioneer Valley.  The workshop takes place at 7pm on Wednesday, February 29, at the South Hadley town hall - 116 Main St, South Hadley, MA.  It is sponsored by the Highland Communities Initiative, and will be co-presented by CR Program and HCI staff, along with the Amherst-based Kestrel Land Trust.  The presentation is free and open to all, but please RSVP by calling or emailing HCI- see the flyer below.

Last but certainly not least is a workshop entitled "Effective Enorcement of CR Violations," at the 2012 Massachusetts Land Conservation Conference (MLCC), which takes place just past the Vernal Equinox, on March 24 in Worcester.  CR Program Director Chris Rodstrom will co-present with colleagues Sally Naser and Andrew Bentley, joined by Sudbury Valley Trustees Stewardship Director Laura Mattei.  MLCC has three sessions throughout the day, with over 30 workshops to choose from, and is the premiere gathering of conservation professionals and supporters in the Commonwealth.  Click here or the conference link above to find out how to register for this exciting conference, now in its 22nd year.  Be sure to register before March 10, to save money on the registration fee!  Even better, volunteering to help out on conference day will earn free registration, in exchange for six hours of volunteer time!  Check out the conference brochure for a listing of all workshops.

Land trust census results -- 47 million acres, and counting!

The Land Trust Alliance recently published the results of its 2010 national trust census. The report describes how land trusts continue to make gains in conservation, despite the recession and cuts to government funding. See the full report HERE. The Trustees of Reservations and our affiliate Hilltown Land Trust both participated in the survey. Key Findings of the 2010 National Land Trust Census include:

• Total acres conserved by state, local and national land trusts grew to 47 million as of year-end 2010—an increase of about 10 million acres since 2005 and 23 million since 2000.
• The number of active land trusts has leveled off at 1,723 organizations since the last Census. This includes 1,699 state and local groups and 24 organizations. categorized as national land trusts. California has the most land trusts with 197, followed by Massachusetts (159), Connecticut (137), Pennsylvania (103) and New York (97).
• The number of active land trust volunteers increased by 70% since 2005, while the number of paid staff and contractors increased by 19%.
• On average, a land trust with a strategic conservation plan guiding its land or easement acquisition conserves twice as many acres as a land trust without such a plan.
• From 2005 to 2010, state and local land trusts more than doubled the amount of funding they have dedicated to monitoring, stewardship and legal defense. They also nearly tripled their operating endowments.

Amphibious winter monitoring

Sometimes the best way to see a property, especially one that has a scenic shoreline enjoyed by the public, is from the water. Recently we carried out one such monitoring visit for a conservation restriction located on Buzzards Bay, and even had to break through some ice with our canoe paddles in the process. Luckily nobody ended up in the water, and the views of the shore were well worth the effort.