Deschutes Land Trust

“The deschutes land trust is committed to the perpetual stewardship of the conservation values protected by our conservation easements. Having a clear and consistent system for preventing and responding to easement violations will help ensure these conservation values are protected. It is therefore the land trust's policy to maintain clear and consistent procedures that will guide both staff and board in handling suspected easement violations. The land trust will regularly review and revise these procedures as needed to ensure the long-term integrity of our conservation easement program. We adopt the following principles to guide us in developing procedures to prevent and resolve conservation easement violations:1. We will establish and maintain constructive relationships with each conservation easement landowner, and regularly discuss with them the provisions, monitoring, and enforcement of the conservation easement(s) hold on their property;2. We will diligently and regularly monitor all of our conservation easements for compliance;3. We will thoroughly document and provide a timely resolution for every violation identified;4. Land trust staff, not board members or other volunteers, will communicate with landowners regarding violation or enforcement matters;5. Land trust staff will keep the board apprised of easement violations, and involve them as appropriate in resolving easement violations. Legal enforcement actions, including hiring legal counsel to pursue a resolution or initiating mediation, arbitration, or litigation, will be initiated only after approval by the board;6. We will provide consistent responses to similar conservation easement violations;7. At all times, we will act in a manner that maintains the land trust's professionalism, credibility, and integrity.”

“Deschutes land trust has acquired and holds a number of conservation easements, each represents a legal interest in land owned by another person or entity. The conservation easement represents the trust's right to use, control and/or protect the land for conservation purposes. Because of the unique nature of these easements, the impracticality of obtaining reliable estimates of the value of these easements, the financial statements reflect only the nominal value for these property rights. This is consistant with practices followed by many environmental land trusts.”