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What is a Land Trust?
Land Trusts are private, non-profit land conservation organizations. Land trusts work with private landowners, and sometimes government agencies, to preserve land that is unique and valuable due to ecological, agricultural, scenic, historic, or recreational qualities. Through the use of estate planning tools and knowledge of federal and state tax laws, land trusts achieve conservation through incentive rather than regulation. As small, local, non-governmental organizations, land trusts can work quickly and creatively to fashion solutions to specific land use planning challenges.
Land trusts have been operating in the United States for over 100 years, although most currently operating land trusts have been founded within the past thirty years. There are now over 1200 land trusts in the United States and they have protected over six million acres of lands with unique ecological, agricultural, scenic, historic, or recreational qualities. More information about the national land trust movement and links to other land trusts and land conservation organizations can be found at the Land Trust Alliance web page: http://www.lta.org.
How Do Landowners Benefit?
Most landowners who work with land trusts do so because they care about wildlife and the environment. However, many also benefit from tax deductions and resolution of financial planning and estate planning issues. Because the Chelan-Douglas Land Trust (CDLT) is an IRS qualified charitable organization, people who engage in bargain sales or donations of land or other assets with the CDLT become eligible for tax deductions based on the value of the donation.
Transactions are tailored to meet the landowner's stated needs and wishes, including perpetual protection of specific resources or environments, the right to continue to live on the land, or the right to receive regular cash payments to supplement retirement income. Thus, working with a Land Trust enables landowners to protect and preserve special places, resolve estate planning and financial planning issues, and helps to ensure that we leave future generations a world that is naturally rich and biologically diverse, and where responsible stewardship of natural lands is valued.
Links to regional land conservation organizations:
Links to national land conservation organizations:
Land Trust Alliance (national alliance of over 1300 Land Trusts)
LandChoices (Information for conservation property owners, listing of conservation properties for sale)
