How Do Conservation Easements Work?

Three families share their experiences entering legal agreements to defend their land from development.

By Bruce Ingram and Elaine Ingram
Updated on April 1, 2022
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by Bruce Ingram
Former Blue Ridge Land Conservancy employee and friend of the author Meagan Cupka kneels near the Lipscombs’ fenced riparian zone that keeps cows out of the creek so it’s more inviting to wildlife.

How do conservation easements work? Three family farms share stories about how they and their lands have benefited from land conservation easements.

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Do you want to protect the wide-open spaces in the mountains, valleys, and streams of our country, where we live, farm, hike, bike, bird, fish, hunt, and experience a host of other outdoor activities? Then consider protecting your property in perpetuity through a conservation easement.

For those unfamiliar with the term and are wondering ‘how do conservation easements work?’ conservation easements are voluntary, legal agreements between landowners and a land trust to permanently protect land from development. In exchange for giving up all or partial development rights, landowners gain significant tax advantages as well as the satisfaction that their land will always remain free of large-scale development.

Emily Bender, assistant director of the Blue Ridge Land Conservancy (BRLC), says this satisfaction is invaluable to many. “For many landowners, easements offer a sense of security, in knowing that their family land will remain intact and can be enjoyed for future generations,” she says. “There is often a sense of reassurance knowing that there will be open space available for farms and forests that are protected by conservation easements.”

Plus, she says, “easements also provide many protections and are customized to address the values of each property.” Bender says this can include the protection of water quality and forest habitat or limitations on the number of property divisions that are permitted. “Land trusts work hard to ensure that the goals of landowners drive the project and that their vision for the property is protected and enhanced by the conservation easement.”

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