Posted by David Hamilton on September 10th, 2008

Today’s Daily Progress front page shouts “Preservation in Peril?”  Brandon Shulleetta’s article details the shortage of Albemarle County’s funding for its Acquisition of Conservation Easements program.  The program provides funding, from property tax revenue, to acquire development rights from rural landowners.  Despite the ominous headline, the program is, in one sense, a victim of its own success.  Albemarle County has been recognized as a leader in land conservation, with a large number of individuals and groups working diligently toward this goal.  The number of landowners willing to step up to the preservation mission has simply increased beyond the County’s funding capacity.  County government is considering taking debt in order to continue or expand the program, a difficult choice for any municipality.

This should not be surprising.  Statistics tell us the difficulty those of us involved in land conservation face:  Nationwide, in recent years, we are developing farm and forest lands at a furious pace, more than two million acres per year, according the the Farmland Information Center of the American Farmland Trust.  Charitable donations, tax-driven easements, and purchases of development rights have been our tools, and we’ve had some success, but the numbers indicate that existing tools will never likely catch more than a fraction of vulnerable properties.  Market-driven solutions can and must be found.

Bundoran Farm is one proven model for permanently protecting productive land.  When I talk about this project, I usually discuss what we’re doing here: the thoughtful master plan, our investments in design and land management, our approach to green building.  Of course, what we do is no more important than how we’re doing it.  Bundoran Farm is placing around two thousand acres of farm, orchard and forest under permanant protection and management, at no public subsidy.  To put a fine point on this, the acreage under easement at Bundoran represents approximately 40% of the total acreage conserved under the County program (over its lifetime), at no cost to area taxpayers.  In fact, the fiscal impact of Bundoran, due to its tax base, is positive for the community.

This project, and others around the country, have proven that, given the right opportunity, Americans understand the value of conservation.  Market-driven solutions such as Bundoran Farm must be part of the mix, a tool in our land-preservation toolkit, which will help us face this sizable challenge in the future.

To read the full article in the Daily Progress, visit www.dailyprogress.com/cdp/news/local/article/demand_growing_but_county_funding_for_conservation_easements_dwindling/27508/

Filed under: Education and Inspiration, General, Nature/Environment