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Property Law and Real Estate

2016

Conservation

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Reconciling Development And Natural Beauty: The Promise And Dilemma Of Conservation Easements, Zachary A. Bray Sep 2016

Reconciling Development And Natural Beauty: The Promise And Dilemma Of Conservation Easements, Zachary A. Bray

Zachary Bray

Local and regional private land trusts are among the most important and most numerous conservation actors in contemporary America, and conservation easements are perhaps the key land conservation tools used by these trusts. In recent decades, privately held conservation easements and local and regional private land trusts have grown at a rapid and increasing rate, and the total acreage protected by privately held conservation easements is now larger than some states. The early growth of privately held conservation easements met widespread approval, but more recently, contemporary conservation easement practice has attracted many critics, based in part on well-publicized national scandals …


Enhancing Conservation Options: An Argument For Statutory Recognition Of Options To Purchase Conservation Easements (Opces), Federico Cheever, Jessica Owley Jan 2016

Enhancing Conservation Options: An Argument For Statutory Recognition Of Options To Purchase Conservation Easements (Opces), Federico Cheever, Jessica Owley

Articles

Land conservation transactions have been the most active component of the conservation movement in the United States for the past three decades. Conservation organizations have acquired property rights-mostly conservation easements-to protect roughly 40 million acres of land nationwide. However, climate change threatens this vast edifice. Climate change means that the resources that land conservation transactions were intended to protect may not persist on the land protected. Options to purchase conservation easements ("OPCEs") have long played a modest but important role in conservation law practice. In the world climate change is creating, with its substantial uncertainties and shifting windows of opportunity, …