Fall 2015 Leaflet
CONSERVATION STEWARDSHIP
A Tool to Help Meet Landowners’ Conservation Goals
When a landowner decides to conserve their property with Pacific Forest Trust, we want them to feel confident that we can indeed fulfill their goals of protecting and stewarding their land in perpetuity. That’s a big promise and the reason why we are members of Terrafirma.
Perpetuity is a long time and many things can happen to challenge that promise. Original easement grantors do not hold their land forever—and chances are new landowners may try to break that easement. In fact, data show that all conservation easements, regardless of how well-managed they are, will likely be challenged at some point. So, in addition to our robust stewardship programs, we now have a way to address legal challenges.
Terrafirma, a charitable “risk pool” and insurance service created by the Land Trust Alliance, helps land trusts meet those legal challenges, ensuring conservation permanence. Pacific Forest Trust and over 500 other land trusts have joined together in Terrafirma to have the means to defend conservation easements by covering legal expenses when they are challenged.
Because conservation easements stay with the land regardless of ownership, the longevity of these agreements comes into question when legal threats arise.
Common issues include:
- New landowners do not share the original grantor’s conservation intent;
- Developers wishing to convert the land for other uses; and
- Dealing with trespassers’ impacts.
The Land Trust Alliance launched Terrafirma in 2011. By July 2015, it had already supported the defense of 116 cases across the U.S., helping safeguard conserved lands. It also provided invaluable risk management guidance to land trusts.
Terrafirma helps us know we have the means to prevail when worst case scenarios become real and disagreements just cannot be resolved outside the courts. It is one more tool to ensure that we can uphold our promise to landowners to fulfill their conservation vision—forever.