Law Commons^™

Keeping The Perpetual In Florida's Conservation Easements, Nancy Mclaughlin

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested in the protection of the Florida Wildlife Corridor and other environmentally sensitive lands. One of the primary tools being used to accomplish this protection is the perpetual conservation easement, which is touted to landowners and the public as providing a permanent guarantee that the subject lands will never be developed. There is a very real danger, however, that perpetual conservation easements in Florida may not, in fact, be perpetual, and that the protections put in place today will vanish over time—along with the public funds invested therein—as government and nonprofit holders “release” …

Slides: Ag Water Sharing: Legal Challenges And Considerations, Peter D. Nichols

Innovations in Managing Western Water: New Approaches for Balancing Environmental, Social and Economic Outcomes (Martz Summer Conference, June 11-12)

Presenter: Peter D. Nichols, Esq., Partner, Berg, Hill, Greenleaf and Ruscitti, Boulder, CO

25 slides

Slides: Practicing Sustainability In Natural Resource Industries, Gary D. Libecap

Natural Resource Industries and the Sustainability Challenge (Martz Winter Symposium, February 27-28)

Presenter: Gary D. Libecap, Bren School of Environmental Science and Management and Economics Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

10 slides

Preservation Is A Flawed Mitigation Strategy, Jessica Owley

Journal Articles

The objective of the Clean Water Act is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters. To help achieve that objective, the Clean Water Act limits the ability to dredge or fill a wetland. To do so, one must first obtain a section 404 permit. These permits, which are issued by the Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) with coordination and oversight from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), require project proponents to avoid, minimize, and compensate the harms of any wetland destruction or modification. Compensatory mitigation is a troubling concept in wetlands regulation because it …

Mitigating The Impacts Of The Renewable Energy Gold Rush, Amy Wilson Morris, Jessica Owley

Journal Articles

Solar energy developers have turned their sights on California’s deserts. Since 2010, local, state, and federal agencies have approved nearly 9,000 megawatts (MW) of solar energy projects in the California desert, including more than 3,000 MW on public lands. The 9,000 MW of approved projects (if all are developed) would require approximately 63,000 acres of total desert land with 21,000 federal acres. The scale of proposed landscape change is unprecedented. Solar energy facilities can be more land-intensive than other forms of energy generation. Because of concern about the potentially devastating impacts of climate change, most major environmental groups have expressed …

Governing The Ungovernable: Integrating The Multimodal Approach To Keeping Agricultural Land Use From Swallowing Ecosystems, Kalyani Robbins

Faculty Publications

As the population grows, so does the conflict between demand for agricultural productivity and the need to maintain healthy ecosystems. Unfortunately, this concern alone does not motivate the agricultural industry to operate in a more environmentally friendly manner, nor is it an industry that has proven amenable to strict regulation. Indeed, any such effort must face one of the mightiest lobbies of all time. As it functions today, agriculture is unsustainable and at risk of wiping out more than its fair share of our already dwindling biodiversity. As demand increases, there is the potential for it to get worse than …

Governmental Conservation Easements: A Means To Advance Efficiency, Freedom From Coercion, Flexibility, And Democracy, Gerald Korngold

Articles & Chapters

Over the past twenty-five years, courts and commentators have recognized and upheld conservation easements as an important vehicle to preserve natural and ecologically sensitive land, focusing primarily on easements held by nonprofit organizations (NPOs). During the same period, courts and commentators have supported property rights of owners against governmental land use regulation. This paper maintains that these two independent developments militate for the increased use of consensual conservation easements by governmental entities to achieve public land preservation goals. Governmental conservation easements can realize the benefits of efficiency, consent and free choice, and conservation, while avoiding the coercion implicit in public …

Slides: Collaborative Planning And Lessons Learned, Matt Sura

Best Management Practices (BMPs): What? How? And Why? (May 26)

Presenter: Matt Sura, University of Colorado Law School

48 slides

Conservation Easements At The Climate Change Crossroads, Jessica Owley

Journal Articles

The essence of a conservation easement as a static perpetual restriction is coming to a head with the understanding that the world is a changing place. This demonstration is nowhere more dramatic than in the context of global climate change. In response to this conflict, users of conservation easements face the decision of either (1) changing conservation easement agreements to fit the landscape or (2) changing the landscape to fit the conservation easements. Both of these options present benefits and challenges in implementation. Where conservation easement holders’ ultimate goal is to keep a maximum number of acres under protection from …

Notional Generosity: Explaining Charitable Donors' High Willingness To Part With Conservation Easements, Josh Eagle

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Enforceability Of Exacted Conservation Easements, Jessica Owley

Journal Articles

The use of exacted conservation easements is widespread. Yet, the study of the implications of their use has been minimal. Conservation easements are nonpossessory interests in land restricting a landowner’s ability to use her land in an otherwise permissible way, with the goal of yielding a conservation benefit. Exacted conservation easements arise in permitting contexts where, in exchange for a government benefit, landowners either create conservation easements on their own property or arrange for conservation easements on other land.

To explore the concern associated with the enforceability of exacted conservation easements in a concrete way, this article examines exacted conservation …

A Tradable Conservation Easement For Vulnerable Conservation Objectives, W. William Weeks

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The critical conservation objectives in some conservation easements will probably be compromised by the effects of climate change in the relatively near future. Prompted to consider that likelihood, we can similarly predict that landscape fragmentation, invasive species, and other catastrophes— anthropogenic and natural—may also seriously diminish the capacity of particular parcels of land to serve narrowly defined conservation purposes, and especially, the conservation of a particular element of biodiversity.

Hicks V. Dowd, Conservation Easements, And The Charitable Trust Doctrine: Setting The Record Straight, W. William Weeks, Nancy A. Mclaughlin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This is the fourth in an exchange of articles published by the Wyoming Law Review discussing the application of charitable trust principles to conservation easements conveyed as charitable gifts. In 2002, Johnson County, Wyoming, attempted to terminate a conservation easement that had been conveyed to the County as a tax-deductible charitable gift. The County's actions were challenged, first in a suit brought by a resident of the County, Hicks v. Dowd, and then in a suit brought by the Wyoming Attorney General, Salzburg v. Dowd. The over six years of litigation associated with the easement's attempted termination has been the …

Slides: Market-Based Stream Flow Restoration And Mitigation, Amanda Cronin

Western Water Law, Policy and Management: Ripples, Currents, and New Channels for Inquiry (Martz Summer Conference, June 3-5)

Presenter: Amanda Cronin, Washington Water Trust, Seattle, WA

23 slides

In Defense Of Conservation Easements: A Response To The End Of Perpetuity, W. William Weeks, Nancy A. Mclaughlin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Saving Special Places: Trends And Challenges With Protecting Public Lands [Outline], Robert B. Keiter

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

7 pages.

Includes bibliographical references

"Robert B. Keiter, Wallace Stegner Professor of Law, University of Utah, S.J. Quinney College of Law"

Slides: The Tribal Perspective, Carl "Bud" Ullman

Water, Climate and Uncertainty: Implications for Western Water Law, Policy, and Management (Summer Conference, June 11-13)

Presenter: Carl "Bud" Ullman, Director, Water Adjudication Project, Klamath Tribes, Chiloquin, OR

17 slides