Protecting Land
The Role of Land Trusts
At heart, a land trust is about permanent land protection. For landowners with a connection to their land, land trusts offer a way to conserve their property for future generations, especially if they have no heirs or heirs who may not care for their land as they do. For people concerned about saving special places in their communities, land trusts can help them conserve these lands in perpetuity.
Land Trusts in Connecticut
In the 1960s and 1970s, Connecticut had large tracts of land with no permanent protection against future development yet was one of the most densely populated states. It was in this backdrop that land trusts began to form. As the conservation movement gained momentum, the number of land trusts grew: from 87 in 1985 to 120 in 1995. Today, there are 137 active land trusts in Connecticut that have preserved over 100,000 acres of open space, according to the Connecticut Land Conservation Council.
Tools for Protecting Land
Land trusts use several tools to permanently protect land. The most popular are accepting gifts of or purchasing land and conservation easements. An outright donation of land not only has a lasting impact on future generations but may result in income tax and estate tax benefits for the donor. A conservation easement is a voluntary legal agreement between a landowner and an entity such as a land trust that permanently protects the land’s conservation values by limiting its development or use. With a conservation easement, the landowner retains ownership of the land and decides what rights they might wish to keep. The land has restrictions placed on it agreed to by the landowner and the land trust, which has responsibility for monitoring the property and upholding the terms of the easement. The property may be sold or passed on to heirs, but the easement’s conditions are binding on future owners of the land. As with an outright donation of land, granting a conservation easement that meets certain federal tax code requirements can result in income tax and estate tax benefits. To find out more about other available conservation options, visit the Land Trust Alliance web site, www.landtrustalliance.org. Click on What you can do. Or go to the Connecticut Land Conservation Council web site at www.ctconservation.org and click on Resources, For Landowners. The Colebrook Land Conservancy is also here to discuss land protection options. Just send an email to info@colebrooklandconservancy.org.
Stewardship
A land trust’s work is not done once it acquires land. It agrees to take care of the land it protects for the long term. For conservation easements, this means the land trust has a responsibility and a legal obligation to ensure the terms of the easement are followed, in particular that the property’s important natural resources remain protected.
This starts with baseline documentation that establishes the condition of the property when the easement was granted and continues as land trusts work with private landowners to protect the special conservation features of their property. Monitoring is a critical tool land trusts use to ensure the ongoing protection of the natural resources and other conservation values of a property. As such, a representative of the land trust visits properties at least annually to assess compliance with the easement’s provisions.
For lands owned outright, stewardship begins with an understanding of the donor’s wishes for the property and the land’s conservation or other significant values. From there, the land trust can plan how to carry out the donor’s wishes and preserve the land’s values. The Colebrook Land Conservancy, for example, established and maintains a wildlife habitat at its Colebrook Road Preserve meadows and has worked to control invasive plants. As with easements, the land trust regularly inspects its properties to ensure the goals for the property are being met and there are no problems, such as boundary encroachments and excessive littering.
Learn More
A host of resources are available to help you learn more about land trusts and land conservation, including at the Land Trust Alliance web site, www.landtrustalliance.org and from the Connecticut Land Conservation Council, www.ctconservation.org
Area conservation organizations to check out include: www.atonforest.org, www.sandybrookhome.blogspot.com, www.litchfieldgreenprint.org, www.frwa.org, www.farmingtonriver.org, and www.hvatoday.org
Neighboring land trusts include: www.norfolklandtrust.org, www.winchesterlandtrust.org, and www.hartlandlandtrust.org.
Here is your country. Cherish these natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children’s children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.
What is a Land Trust?
A land trust is a private, nonprofit organization that actively works to conserve land by undertaking or assisting with direct land transactions – primarily the purchase or acceptance of donations of land or conservation easements. Land trusts vary greatly in scope and scale, but all of them share the common mission of working cooperatively with landowners to protect and conserve land for its natural, recreational, scenic, historic, or productive value.
Some land trust focus on distinct areas, such as a single town, county or region, and support grassroots efforts to conserve lands important to local communities. Others operate throughout an entire state or even several states. As thousands of acres of open space are lost to development annually, the public is turning more and more frequently to land trusts, which are filling a national need to protect and steward open lands in perpetuity. Land trusts also are sometimes called conservancies, foundations and associations. The country’s first land trusts were established in Massachusetts during the 1850s for the purpose of protecting small parcels of land for public use. They were often known as “village improvement societies.” One hundred years later in 1950, there were 53 land trusts operating in 26 states. Since that time, the increase in numbers of land trusts and the acres they have protected has been dramatic.
Today, there are more than 1,300 local and regional land trust across the nation protecting more than nine million acres of farmland, wetlands, ranches, forests, watersheds, river corridors, and other land types as well as several national land trusts that have protected millions more acres. There are also a growing number of land trusts outside the U.S. in countries such as Canada, Costa Rica and Australia.
From Land Trust Alliance Fact Sheet. Reproduced with permission of the Land Trust Alliance.
Why Conserve Land?
The benefits of land conservation are many and varied. Can you add to this list?
- Providing clean air and water
- Helping combat climate change
- Preserving fish and wildlife habitat
- Conserving agricultural lands
- Protecting natural plant communities
- Maintaining scenic beauty
- Providing places for relaxation and recreation
- Offering landscape continuity
The Colebrook Land Conservancy
Post Office Box 90
Colebrook, Connecticut 06021
info@colebrooklandconservancy.org
Our Mission
Preserve and conserve the special and unique characteristics of Colebrook—rural, historic and scenic—using accepted land conservation techniques and education in cooperation with the Town, the community and other groups.