Conservation easements are central to how all land conservancies protect their preserves.
Land conservancies, also known as land trusts, work with people who want to sell or donate their land, as well as landowners who want to keep their land and do more to permanently protect their natural resources.
Land trusts and landowners modify their land’s deed with a conservation easement. A conservation easement is a special kind of deed restriction. It permanently restricts certain activities and development on the property that could harm that property’s wildlife and natural resources. If a landowner sells their property, the conservation easement is transferred along with the property. The next landowner will then be responsible for adhering to the terms and restrictions of that conservation easement. This helps permanently protect the land.
Activities a conservation easement can restrict (or explicitly permit) include commercial timbering, hunting or trapping, agricultural activity, housing or other development, and public access or creation of trails, among others. NCOLC does not currently hold nor seek any conservation easements on agricultural land.
NCOLC holds conservation easements on all of our public nature preserves. Most of our conservation easements allow hunting, hiking trails, and non-disruptive public access. All of our conservation easements prohibit commercial timbering, housing or other development, and active recreation such as horseback riding, all-terrain vehicles, and mountain biking. If you notice any violations of these terms, please contact us at ncolandconservancy@gmail.com describing what you saw with photos of the violation.