----- Original Message -----

Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2004 22:27:34 -0400

Resource Renewal Institute - Defense of Place

Defense of Place - a project of

Resource Renewal Institute Fort Mason Center Building D San Francisco, CA 94123 Phone: 415.928.3774 Fax: 415.928.4050 info@rri.org

The Second Wave of Land Conservation (Excerpted from an 18 October speech at the Land Trust Alliance rally.)

As a nation, we have a great history of private land conservation. During the second half of the twentieth century alone, we protected twenty-million acres through the work of land trusts and conservation organizations. This first wave of land conservation was a tremendous accomplishment, marked by its focus on acquisition.

Now, we need must fundamentally revise the challenge of land conservation. The focus of land conservation needs to be expanded to make permanent protection as important as acquisition. America must eventually embrace an ethic of permanence similar to that espoused by the British National Trust, which has never sold any of its protected lands.

In this second wave of land conservation, we need to guarantee that our lands are protected in perpetuity. Land trusts must be honest, trustworthy stewards of the land, and serve as a powerful voice opposing the improper uses of protected land. Without such unquestioned integrity, the credibility of the entire movement will erode, and support for both additional acquisitions and resolute stewardship will disappear.

Defense of Place works to assure that our protected lands stay protected. Forever. We founded the organization to serve as a tireless watchdog to ensure that the lands given or purchased by previous generations remain intact, to be passed down from generation to generation. In addition to our canine role, we also provide the tools necessary for others to help us carry out this important work.

It's not just cash-strapped institutions that are willing to sell out a donor for a few dollars. Los Altos Hills, California, one of America's wealthiest communities, considered selling a park because it "needed the money." The town council proposed selling off a park and building on an adjacent nature preserve south of San Francisco to pay for moving the city's utility wires underground and to build a new town hall.

The preserve in question was donated to the Nature Conservancy 35 years ago, and later transferred to the town. When citizens contacted the Conservancy about the possibility of losing the natural quality of the preserve, the Conservancy claimed it couldn't commit any resources help to preserve the land with which it had been originally entrusted. The Conservancy washed its hands after the transfer to the town. That's when Defense of Place stepped in. We worked with local citizens to develop a two-part strategy to pressure irresponsible council members to honor the donor's intention, then take the fate of the protected land away from politicians on the council.

The campaign worked and the proponents of open space prevailed. Later, the citizens passed an open space initiative which required a popular vote to sell any town open space. One resident observed that that never in the history of the town had there been an issue that so galvanized the population.

Meanwhile, north of San Francisco, construction workers are building a massive above-ground wastewater pipeline through a nature preserve supposedly protected with a "forever wild" easement. Sonoma County taxpayers bought the conservation easement on the land owned by the local chapter of the Audubon society. It turns out that the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors is also the Open Space District Board, which funds Open Space acquisition. Thus, when the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors wanted to put a gigantic pipeline through the ostensibly protected land, all they needed was to grant themselves permission. One commentator said there hadn't been such a blatant conflict of interest since the fox was entrusted with the security of the henhouse.

The director of the local land trust said he couldn't oppose the deal because he was beholden to the open space district for the funding he needed to buy land. This sad case demonstrates the need a fearless, independent outsider who can stand up to the developers sitting on large sums of money.

At Defense of Place, we use a variety of powerful tools in our fight to preserve protected lands. Conservation easements, a tool that protects private property by ceding control of the development rights to a third party, are becoming increasingly popular in the conservation movement. Land trusts and conservation organizations trying to maximize the amount of acres protected for the least amount of money see easements as the best way to do this. Unfortunately, many veterans are concerned that these easements will not hold up for a thousand, a hundred, or even fifty years.

Darla Guenzler's study of easements in the Bay Area showed that there are sound reasons to be concerned about their longevity. First, nearly half of the easements are not monitored. Of those that are, fourteen percent are known to already have violations. If half of the easements in the Bay Area, a region known for land conservation, aren't being monitored, how can we expect the easements all over the country to withstand the test of time?

To address this problem, Defense of Place is planning the creation of a database of protected lands. There is currently no easy way to find out what is protected in your community, region, or state. Easements and land held by a government entity or a nonprofit can go unnoticed and unenforced. For example, Stanford University's lands are a state game refuge. Even though this provision is still on the books, the preserve didn't even appear in a recent Environmental Impact Statement done on the property. Without a centralized and comprehensive record of protected lands, what hope do we have that they will stay protected for the next millennium, let alone the next century?

The Land Trust Alliance is currently exploring doing collective easement defense as a way to assure that one costly legal battle to defend an easement wouldn't bankrupt a land trust. At Defense of Place, we are in the process of creating an insurance policy, the Legacy Guarantee, to ensure that there is a second line of defense should the organization that is supposed to protect the donated land fail to do so.

If we are to succeed, we must operate with impeccable credibility. If we fail to do so, we risk undoing years of important work. Earlier this year, the Washington Post published a series of scandalous articles exposing the Nature Conservancy's unethical if not illegal activities. Everyone in the conservation movement felt the impact of that debacle.

Our credibility can be also damaged when a group outside of the land conservation movement acts inappropriately with conservation lands. Here's an example: an elderly woman donates a thousand acres to her alma mater, and the school agrees to protect it forever. Years later, however, the land has increased in value twenty-fold and the school sells it to a developer to build a subdivision. Even though a bona fide land trust had nothing to do with the transaction, this distinction may be lost on the general public.

The biggest threat to a land trust's credibility is if the promises made to donors aren't honored, and the land ends up with subdivisions, sewage pipelines, or worse. Even one well-publicized mistake can spell the end for a well-meaning land trust.

There are many ways in which land trusts may simultaneously increase their effectiveness and underscore their credibility. First, an audit by a nearby-but noncompeting-land trust of stewardship and permanence policies is beneficial. Had the Nature Conservancy had an audit of some of its practices, many of the organization's missteps and the embarrassments could have been avoided.

In practice, this usually involves following the standards and practices of the Land Trust Alliance. In addition, land trusts should create a permanence policy clearly outlining what it will do to ensure sure the lands with which it's entrusted are protected in perpetuity.

Land trusts may also enhance their stature and effectiveness by taking a proactive role in protecting land entrusted to other organizations, such as churches, educational institutions, and scouting organizations. Often these groups don't have the experience or expertise to protect the lands with which they were entrusted.

This second wave of land conservation, marked by impeccable integrity, continual vigilance, and uncompromising standards, will be our way of honoring the generations that preceded us by handing down their collective legacy to our successors.