Bruce's Forestry Page

The first item I would like to bring to your attention is a book on Conservation Easements. This book is authored by Dr. Steven Bick and Harry L. Haney, Jr. Steve is a consultant forester from Thendara, NY who has produced some excellent material for forest landowners. I came to know about this book when, in conversation with Steve about some recent trials and tribulations of easements for forest landowners, Steve mentioned, quite casually, that he had written a book about conservation easements titled: "The Landowner's Guide to Conservation Easements". Steve graciously sent along a copy and after reading it I have been a great proponent of it (and - no - I do not receive any renumeration, or money either...). His descriptions of what converstation easements are, considerations of various implications of them, definitions of the terms used in them and to describe them, tax ramifications (income, estate & real property), and the pitfalls as well as the positive aspects of easements, are spelled out in language that the lay person can understand. This helps the landowner better communicate with his or her attorney about the proposed conservation easement as well as bettter understand the negotiations and the resultant easement contract that evolves. Usually the wording of the contract is provided by the Grantee, the entity or organization, private or public, that is acquiring the easement from the landowner, the Grantor. This entity could be a non-profit or for-profit organization. It could be an environmenal preservation or conservation organization or it could be an industrial or developmental entity. It could be a governmental body, most commonly the state or federal government. Whatever the entity's makeup, they have their own objectives in carrying out the easement. Those probably will not include the landowner's objectives for forest ownership and management, nor protection for those objectives. In the last decade conservation easements have been increasingly used, by environmental groups and governments, as an alternative method for land use control and are becoming fairly common. They are a method of land-use control and a landowner should realize what they are accepting, and it's ramifications, before executing a conservation easement on the land. Yes, I know there are a lot of books on conservation easements. All one has to do is go to www.amazon.com or www.barnesandnoble.com and search for "conservation easements" to see quite a list of books (Steve's book is listed on both). If you getting looking at the list a little more in depth you will notice that they are written from the point of the Grantee on how they can be used, and how to frame/write a conservation easement, to their advantange. A number are written by Land Trusts who are organized specifically for this purpose. Some of the books are more for the lawyers involved in discussing the legal aspects and jargon of easements. However, I think this book stands out because it is wtitten for the landowner, the Grantor of the easements. The environmental organizations and trusts, along with governement officials, are attending conferences and training on how to use, and write, conservation easements to further the goals of their organizations. The average landowner is at a tremendous disadvantage in the negotiation of a conservation easement. In order to better level the playing field I think, no I KNOW, that every landowner contemplating the granting of a conservation easement should read this book. As a matter of fact, I think that evey Forester who might deal with easements, and conservation easements specifically, should obtain and read this tome. I have a link to the Table of Contents of the book below, just click on the book icon or title to view the table of contents in Adobe PDF format.