How much land is needed to do a conservation easement?
Most any size of land can be protected with an easement. A conservation easement may apply to only a small part of an owner’s land or to all of it, depending upon what the owner wants to protect and whether the easements and restrictions are acceptable to the monitoring organization. As a practical matter, the smaller the parcel the less likely that it will have significant conservation values that warrant placing a conservation easement on it. Palmer Land Trust currently holds easements on ranches as large as 4,000 acres and on urban parcels as small as eleven acres. Unfortunately, the cost of preparing and monitoring an easement can sometimes outweigh the conservation values of a property that is very small. The Land Trust evaluates each proposed easement on a case-by-case basis. (See “The Palmer Land Trust – Land Values Check List ).
