Conservation Easements

Conservation easements provide a practical, legally effective means for a private landowner to protect the significant features of a property, or a portion of a property, while retaining private ownership.  By defining and removing particular rights from the ownership of a parcel of land, the conservation easement creates permanent safeguards against uses of the land that could damage or destroy its ecological, scenic, recreational, or resource values.  Each conservation easement is written specifically to address the needs and desires of the owner, the natural characteristics of the land, and the conservation objectives of the owner.  The holder of a conservation easement agrees to protect the land’s specified conservation values in perpetuity.

Land subject to a conservation easement is still privately owned and managed. All rights of ownership which have not been specifically transferred by the conservation easement remain with the current owner. For example, a landowner may restrict or limit the rights to develop a property for commercial, industrial, or multi-residential purposes while retaining rights to use the land for grazing, farming, harvesting of timber, recreation, or for residences for the owner's family.

Drews Valley Ranch
In 2004 the Oregon Rangeland Trust purchased a conservation easement on the Drew’s Valley Ranch in Lake County, Oregon.  Purchase of the easement was accomplished through the cooperation of The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Trust for Public Land and was funded through the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, the Natural Resource Conservation Service Farm and Ranchland Protection Program and a donation from the landowners, Jack and Bev Sparrowk.

The conservation easement will be held and monitored by the Oregon Rangeland Trust and allows the Sparrowk's and any future owners of the ranch to continue ranching on the 11,400 acres that comprise the property.  The easement ensures that the ranch will continue as a working landscape, providing wildlife habitat and open space as well as a cattle operation and will not be developed now or in the future.