The Conservation Defense Center provides:

• A legal clearinghouse* stocked with a wide variety of legal information on conservation defense for land trusts, including cases and related materials; practical tips; law review article, statutes; tax code and sample documents.  This has a new search engine that makes it fast and easy to find just the information you need.
• An attorney locator database,* listing experienced conservation attorneys by state and by specialty.  Note: if you are an attorney, see if your record is there and update it!
• Monthly eNews updates about the latest news in conservation defense, and look for the articles on conservation defense in every issue of Saving Land.
• Private forums for experienced senior practitioners and conservation attorneys in the conservation defense network to discuss the latest developments and devise resources for land trusts to meet challenges successfully.
• Outreach, personal technical assistance and advanced continuing training to help prevent legal problems for land trusts and help resolve them when problems do occur. Legal and conservation education events for attorneys, land trusts, law students and regulators.
• Resources to promote positive changes to state conservation law and policy.  These resources include 50 state surveys of laws, such as conservation enabling acts, to reveal new approaches and gaps on emerging issues, model legislation, policy alerts, resources to respond to regulators, and information sharing about advancements in other states.
• Law school partnerships to provide research, resources and tools to land trusts. The Allaince currently partners with Vermont Law School and Indiana Conservation Law Center. Law schools interested in developing a partnership with the Alliance should call or write Leslie Ratley-Beach at 802-262-6051 or e-mail lrbeach@lta.org.

For more information, call or write Leslie Ratley-Beach at 802-262-6051 or e-mail lrbeach@lta.org.

*Available to Alliance member land trusts and partners, and to individual donors at the $250 level and above.

Here are some additional methods to consider:

Resale of Land

If you need to sell your land but don’t want to see it destroyed by development, a land trust can help. Prior to the sale, you can work with your local land trust to place a conservation easement on the land before it goes on the market. Some land trusts can also help identify potential buyers for conserved lands.

Donation of Land for Conservation

Donating land for conservation is one of the finest legacies a person can leave to future generations. If you choose to donate your land, your land trust can work with you to identify the best arrangement. The land trust might retain ownership of the property as a permanent preserve or transfer the property to a suitable owner, such as a government agency. In some cases, the land is sold to a private owner, subject to a conservation easement held by the land trust. (Proceeds from such a sale could fund the land trust’s long-term management of the conservation easement and/or help it to protect even more land.) The full market value of land donated to a nonprofit land trust is tax deductible as a charitable gift.

Bargain Sale

In a bargain sale, you sell your land to a land trust for less than its fair market value. This not only makes it more afford¬able for the land trust, but offers several benefits to you: it provides cash, avoids some capital gains tax, and entitles you to a charitable income tax deduction based on the difference between the land’s fair market value and its sale price.

Donation with a Lifetime Income

If you have land you would like to protect by donating it to a land trust, but you need to receive income during your lifetime, consider a charitable gift annuity or a charitable remainder unitrust. Charitable gift annuities and charitable remainder unitrusts are most useful for highly appreciated land, the sale of which would incur high capital gains tax.