Protecting the Land: Conservation Easements Past, Present, and Future

by Julie Ann Gustanski and Roderick H. Squires

A conservation easement is a legal agreement between a property owner and a conservation organization, generally a private nonprofit land trust, that restricts the type and amount of development that can be undertaken on that property. Conservation easements protect land for future generations while allowing owners to retain property rights, at the same time providing them with significant tax benefits. Conservation easements are among the fastest...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1559636548
• ISBN13: 9781559636544
• Release Date: March 2000
• Publisher: Island Press
• Length: 450 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Great Planning Resource

I'm a public official with the planning function, looking for a better way to preserve farm land, open space and rural character. This book offers a lot of insight into the history and uses of conservation easements. The book is divided into sections that describe in detail how laws and courts in each section of the country administer conservation easements. I recommend this book - it is an excellent planning resource!

A Dynamic Contribution!

The editors, Julie Ann Gustanski and Roderick Squires have brought together a dynamic team of experts from across the country. The legal analysis chapters help all those who are interested, not only in knowing their own state's conservation easement laws, but those who are looking to help forge new or improved legislation in their state. The case studies exemplify the diversity and range of land conservation options that are possible using conservation easements and add to the richness of the book.While the reading may be legalistic to academic at times, the diversity of presentations serve to enhance this very rich volume of information. "Protecting the Land" serves as the first in-depth insight to the legal workings of conservation easement legislation across the country. This book is an ABSOLUTE MUST for all those "out in the field" as well as those who may be interested in learning more about the legal dimensions of easement enabling legislation, its history, how easements have been used, as well as a look to the future of land conservation in the US.From the point of view as an academic, I also believe that this book will be extremely useful to those teaching in the legal arena that deals with conservation easements, as well as to those who are teaching courses at the undergraduate and graduate level in resource conservation and environmental policy.The caliber of contributors to the volume speaks for itself, from Steve Small to Todd Mayo and Bill Hutton, among others writing on the legal aspects of conservation enabling laws. And on the ground there are numerous contributing authors who have decades of knowledge and experience behind them, including Tom Daniels, Dennis Collins, Chuck Roe, and Julie Ann Gustanski. Those from academe tease out strands that have for too long gone unteased. Jack Wright for example brings both experience from the academic and practitioners perspectives, as do Daniels and Gustanski. While the volume is not for the lighthearted reader, it addresses the subject matter extensively, and succinctly. Overall I give this book 5 stars, it is well written, well documented, and provides the best single volume I have seen in more than two decades of experience with land trusts and the phenomenal tool we call conservation easements.