Sweetening the deal

Two years ago the Land Trust Alliance celebrated a victory two decades in the making: the passage of the permanent enhanced tax incentive for donations of conservation easements.

As landowners all over the country explore making a conservation donation — on all types of landscapes — the enhanced deduction for conservation easement donations can be the factor that moves them from thought to action. Here’s one example from New Hampshire:

Tom and Sally Wilkins, eighth-generation New Hampshire foresters, have protected more than 520 acres of land in several New Hampshire towns. In recent years the couple has conveyed five conservation easements on 14 different parcels of land to the accredited Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests (SPNHF). The donated easements will allow the family to continue harvesting timber for its family owned and operated sawmill while guaranteeing that the land remains undeveloped and open to the public.

These protected areas are home to diverse wildlife, such as songbirds, amphibians, deer, moose and bears. By ensuring that the lands remain intact, the easements help to safeguard the wildlife’s habitat. This is particularly important because the Wilkinses live in a part of the state with the highest population and some of the strongest development pressures.

“We are keenly aware that the world we grew up in is vanishing,” says Sally Wilkins. “This is a place where you can go into the woods and not hear cars out on the highway. It is natural habitat for animals to call home. We are also continuing to do sustainable harvesting of timber, which is a dying industry in New Hampshire.”

According to Brian Hotz, vice president of land conservation at SPNHF, the Wilkinses were committed to protecting their land, but the enhanced federal tax incentive sweetened the deal. “For us it was a bonus but not the incentive,” says Sally Wilkins. For other landowners, however, the incentive truly is the “make or break” factor. “The enhanced tax incentive is absolutely encouraging people to put land under easement,” says Wilkins, who also serves on the board of the Amherst Land Trust. “I know of one example in which the donation of the conservation easement literally hinges on whether the tax benefits will be favorable enough. The key is making land protection affordable to people.”

Edith Pepper Goltra is a frequent writer for Saving Land.