Protecting a Portion of the Beaver Dam Heath Conservation Focus Area and Initiating Innovative Conservation Financing in Berwick, Maine

This project permanently protected 28 acres in the Beaver Dam Heath Conservation Focus Area through a bargain sale of the fee simple interest. The Grants Meadow III parcel is 85% wetland. The remainder of the upland lies along Diamond Hill Road with adequate frontage for 2-3 house lots. This project involved outreach to the Town of Berwick for project funding to match the PREP funding awarded. GWRLT also received NAWCA funds to complete the project

Applying the Private Benefit Doctrine to Farmland Conservation Easements

Farmland or working-land conservation easements serve two purposes. One is charitable, to protect open space from development; the other is practical, to preserve the land in productive agricultural use. These purposes, however, create a tension in the easement itself that can force the land trust that holds the easement to choose between the two purposes when the easement, meant in part to protect the farm, threatens the farm\u27s continued viability. Neutral-impact amendments are amendments to working-land easements that allow farmers to improve farm production or viability without harming the conservation value of the easements. Such amendments seem beneficial: a land trust can advance one of its goals of keeping agricultural land productive–without sacrificing the other goal of preserving the conservation value of the land. By approving such an amendment, however, a land trust likely violates the private benefit doctrine and risks losing its tax-exempt status. This Note argues that the IRS should explicitly decide not to apply the private benefit doctrine to neutral-impact amendments of farmland and working-land conservation easements

Conserving the Pawtuckaway River Focus Area and Kennard Hill Focus Area : Final Report

The Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership provided $8,000 to support the Southeast Land Trust of New Hampshire’s land conservation work within the Pawtuckaway River and Kennard Hill Focus Areas, two areas identified by the Land Conservation Plan for New Hampshire’s Coastal Watershed. Through this grant, the Southeast Land Trust has: permanently conserved two parcels totaling 90.55 acres within the Pawtuckaway River Focus Area; entered into four agreements to acquire and conserve 221.4 acres within the Pawtuckaway River Focus Area and 190 acres within the Kennard Hill Focus Area; and facilitated, through the Wetlands Reserve Program, the protection of 60 acres within the supporting landscape of the Kennard Hill Focus Area and Pawtuckaway River Focus Area. In total, more than 560 acres will be conserved upon the completion of all of these projects

What can the Apple Teach the Orange? Lessons U.S. Land Trusts can Learn from the National Trust in the U.K.

The National Trust in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland is one of the oldest and most revered private land conservation organizations in the world. While the private land conservation movements in the United States and the United Kingdom began at a similar time and with similar tools, conservation attitudes and methods in the two countries diverged. Today, the National Trust dominates land conservation in the U.K. while the strength of the U.S. movement is the energy of over 1,500 smaller organizations operating at different scales across the country. Despite the differences, this project looks to the National Trust in England and concludes that three elements of the National Trust’s experience provide important insights for U.S. land trusts rethinking their programs as political and environmental change engulfs the planet. First, the National Trust has gone through several iterations in its understanding of general public benefit and public access to protected properties in a way that most U.S. land trusts have yet to do. Second, National Trust experience suggests that U.S. land trusts could become more engaged in land-use regulations rather than presenting themselves primarily as an alternative (private, compensated, voluntary) thereto. Finally, the National Trust’s approaches to balancing agricultural productivity with sustainability provide useful models to study and emulate in the management of working landscapes. Many of the lessons learned by the National Trust could enrich private land conservation in the United States in an era of government withdrawal from environmental protection and growing impacts of climate change

Promoting Land Conservation in the Coastal Watershed through Local Faces, Special Places

The Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership provided nearly $3,300.00 to support the Southeast Land Trust of New Hampshire’s (SELTNH) promotion of donated conservation easements in the coastal watershed of Rockingham County. The Southeast Land Trust produced three short web-friendly videos, explaining land conservation from the perspective of a tree farmer, vineyard owner, and a community leader. In addition, the Land Trust hosted two workshops in Kingston and Epping for landowners interested in learning more about the tax and financial benefits of land conservation. Workshop invitations were mailed to more than 1,200 current use landowners within the region. Twenty-two landowners attended the two workshops. From these workshops, the Land Trust generated one donated and one bargain sale conservation easement in 2011 and one potential bargain sale conservation easement in 2012. While originally intended to be part of the grant funded project, the Land Trust was unable to complete a mobile tabletop display or a brochure on the enhanced federal tax incentive for donated conservation easements

2004 Coastal Conservation Outreach

The Seacoast Land Trust mission is to actively promote and effect the protection and stewardship of open lands in the Seacoast. Since our founding in 1998, programs and outings have been an essential part of the organizations activities. Through our programs we strive to raise the awareness about the importance of land conservation and land stewardship. The grant funding allowed us to offer a wide range of programs and activities and to focus on the importance of protection to our coastal habitats and wetland resources. The programs involved participants with a wide range of ages and interests and included concerned citizens, municipal and conservation leaders, students, and members of civic organizations. Highlights of these activities, their turnout and comments from participants are presented below. In all of these programs Seacoast Land Trust presented information on its current land protection programs and land conservation success stories as part of the activities. A presentation of mapping of the lands within the SLT service area, previously funded by the New Hampshire Estuaries Project and the New Hampshire Coastal Program was also displayed at each event. We ended up adding three additional programs and activities above the ten activities/programs originally proposed

Quantum dynamics of bound states under spacetime fluctuations

Acknowledgments The authors are grateful for hospitality to Martin Land and other Organizers of the IARD 2016 Conference, where a related lecture was delivered by TO. This work was supported by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland (TO) and by the EPSRC GG-Top Project and the Cruickshank Trust (CW).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The Path to the Land Conservancy of Adams County

As part of this year\u27s observation of Land Conservancy Month, board member and retired Gettysburg College English Department chair Mary Margaret Stewart has prepared an annotated bibliography of readings on land preservation, land conservation, and land trusts. Beginning with Henry David Thoreau and John Muir and extending through the works of Wendell Berry and Annie Dillard and on to a survey of books discussing the philosophy behind the land trust movement, Mary Margaret\u27s bibliography is an outstanding resource for those who want to learn more about protecting our wild and undeveloped spaces

Lessons for the Forest Service from State Trust Land Management Experience

This paper argues that state trust land management experience is potentially a source of valuable insights and examples for the U.S. Forest Service. The paper sketches historic and current trends in public resource administration to define what constitutes useful new ideas which might aid the agency in its present crisis. In spite of being this nation's oldest approach to public resource management, the state trust lands are an appropriate source of new ideas in an era in which, the paper suggests: (1) the courts are receding as a major source of executive accountability, (2) the legitimacy of federal agencies, particularly those whose authority is rooted in science, is declining, and (3) the institutional framework for public resource management is rapidly fragmenting and diversifying. The Forest Service could fruitfully explore (1) the trust standard of prudence, particularly requirements for trustee accountability and record keeping; (2) the role of the beneficiary in trust accountability and constituency building; (3) the state trust manager's adaptation of the trust notion of a portfolio and risk management; and (4) state trust land agency's different approaches to tying program funding to income without eliminating the legislature's role in appropriations. The trust mandate as embodied in western trust land management organizations also provides (5) examples of institutional flexibility that could be instructive to the agency in this new era of partnerships, and (6) a raft of experience doing the same thing the Forest Service does (e.g., leasing grazing and minerals) which ought to inform Forest Service consideration of alternative management tools.

Community Land Trust Feasibility in Los Angeles County

Los Angeles County is in the midst of a housing crisis. The Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Action identified community land trusts as one method to address the need for affordable housing for low- and moderate- income residents. This research examined current community land trust feasibility in Los Angeles County in consideration of the existing affordable housing funding and housing market environment. The research finds that community land trusts face significant funding gaps when trying to build or acquire housing for low- and moderate-income households. The one feasible option for community land trusts is new construction of large apartment buildings adjacent to transit, which qualifies the project for additional state funding. The research points to the need for additional funding directed towards CLTs for new construction projects and the creation of a pool of funding for CLTs to acquire existing housing in Los Angeles County