The Athens Conservancy

Conservation Easements

Think protecting the environment, saving historic sites, or preserving farmland is only the job of government? Think again. With over ninety-six percent of the land in Ohio privately owned, landowners play an important role in preserving Ohio's heritage for future generations. Fortunately, there is an increasingly popular tool to help private landowners protect their land: the conservation easement. With a conservation easement, private landowners can protect their land for future generations without giving up ownership. Between 1990 and 2000, over 2.6 million acres nation-wide were privately protected by conservation easements.

A helpful analogy to understanding the way land can be protected without selling the land itself is by thinking of land as a bundle of sticks. Each stick represents a particular interest in the land: one stick is the surface of the land, another stick is a mineral underlying the surface, and another stick can be the right to use the land in a certain way. This latter stick is often referred to as an easement.

Common easements are those that allow someone to drive across a piece of property or cross a piece of property with a utility (e.g. electric lines). The easement holder does not own the land, but just the right to cross the land.

The same is true with conservation easements. The landowner is not selling or donating the land; the landowner is simply selling or donating certain rights to use a portion of the property in order to protect it for future generations. For example, in order to protect a rare plant or animal, an owner might give up the right to develop the land, but retain the right to use the land in any other way. Or, in order to protect farmland, the owner might sell or donate the right to commercially develop the property, but retain the right to continue farming.

Like all easements, the conservation easement can last for a period of time, or forever. When the easement is permanent and donated to a charitable organization, the landowner may be able to qualify for tax benefits.

Conservation easements are typically held by governmental agencies, land trusts, or non-profit organizations. The purpose of the conservation easement will likely determine which organization would be the best "holder" of the easement. For example, the American Farmland Trust would be interested in holding conservation easements to protect farmland in areas threatened by urban "sprawl." Another example would be the Nature Conservancy, which would be interested in holding conservation easements to protect ecologically important areas.

There are at least fifty established land trusts in Ohio; protecting everything from Civil War battlefields to scenic rivers. One of the newest is the Athens Conservancy, which is working locally to protect the scenic attributes of our county. Whether for historic, farmland, or environmental reasons, conservation easements are an important tool for protecting land for generations to come.