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Conservation Easements And Adaptive Management, Jesse Richardson

Law Faculty Scholarship

The perpetual nature of conservation easements makes adaptive management difficult on easement property. Various easement provisions may be used to incorporate adaptive management principles into a conservation easement, but various factors, including state statutory requirements and Internal Revenue Code requirements for deductibility, limit the flexibility of management on conservation easement lands. Jesse Richardson discusses how conservation easements limit implementation of adaptive management principles on protected lands. Case studies of conservation easements that now fail to fulfill the original conservation purpose, but are locked into perpetual conservation, illustrate the limitations of conservation easements. Richardson also discusses likely future conflicts between conservation …