<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/conservation-easements-farmland-oregon/>
"Jan Wallinder and Ron Webb are the farmer-owners of Forest Edge Vineyard, an
organically farmed vineyard 24 miles southeast of Portland that also has a
fruit orchard and adjacent 22-acre forest. The couple, who have owned this land
since 1984, are in their mid-70s and have no children. Yet they are passionate
about making sure that their 45-acre property is used as farmland and forest in
the future.
“It’s our belief that we have a relationship to the land and what it gives us,”
explains Wallinder, 74. “And we need to preserve nature because it’s going
away.” It’s also important to the couple, who farm organically and practice
permaculture, that the next generation who buys their land value these
practices.
Several years ago, the couple started investigating land trusts that could help
them protect their land as farmland in perpetuity. (A land trust is an
organization — usually a nonprofit but sometimes a government agency — that
works to permanently conserve land.) “We didn’t find one that met our needs,”
Wallinder says. Wallinder and Webb wanted to keep their property as a working
farm and working forest — which would mean some change to the landscape. “We do
intend to cut timber, because that’s what you do when you manage a forest,” she
says. “I think most land trusts are more interested in protecting the land as
it is.”
Eventually, they met Nellie McAdams, who was on the verge of launching the
Oregon Agricultural Trust, which would focus on “working land conservation
easements.” This type of easement protects the land in perpetuity for
conservation as well as for active farming and forestry uses.
Forest Edge is just one of five properties that Oregon Agricultural Trust (OAT)
has helped conserve using this type of easement. A conservation easement is a
voluntary real estate contract through which a landowner cedes development
rights on a property to an organization that will ensure that no one uses those
rights in the future. (For example, the land could not be sold to the highest
bidder to create a resort, luxury home or shopping mall.)
Founded in 2019, OAT negotiates working land conservation easements with
farmers and ranchers, helps them access financial benefits in exchange and
makes sure that current and future landowners follow the easements’
conservation requirements. McAdams, who is the executive director, is also a
fifth-generation Oregon farmer, so she has insight into the financial and
societal challenges farmers are facing. She’s clearly meeting a big need in the
state. “We have gotten more demand than we know what to do with,” she says.
The nonprofit also offers Oregon farmers and ranchers resources such as
trainings on estate and succession planning, educational webinars, and a
seven-part “Stories from the Field” video series. It also has an advocacy
program, which champions local, state and federal funding for working lands
protection."
Via
Positive.News
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
