Winter 2003 Volume 12, Number 3
Letters to the Editor
To the Editor:
Well, I've been listening to the topic of conservation easements for several years now and can't keep quiet any longer. Now, please remember that this is just my opinion and that's all it is but I feel I've got to express it now or keep quiet into perpetuity. The topic came up at this year's IFWOA annual meeting and got me to thinking again. The thing I keep hearing in the back of my mind is my lawyer the last time we drew up a new will. She said 'Don't try to rule from the grave'. I think this is good advice. The thing about conservation easements that bothers me is that phrase "in perpetuity'. That doesn't mean for your lifetime, or your children's lifetime. It means for your great-great-great-great-grandchildren's lifetime and beyond. How can anybody know what their 5th great grandchildren are going to be faced with when it comes to owning forested land in Indiana? How can anyone know where their 6th great grandchildren will live? Indiana? Colorado? Norway? Mars? I keep thinking of a neighbor whose father owned and farmed land at the intersection of West 38th Street and High School road in Indianapolis. He sold this land to a developer in 1960 and moved west making a much better life for his family and children. What if this land had been in a conservation easement ?It was destined to be part of the city but could it have been sold? What would it have been worth if it could not have been developed? The income from this farm has made a better life possible for the next three generations who, incidentally, are still farming. At the IFWOA meeting we were told of an 800 acre parcel in Green County. It sounded like a delightful place. Hills, streams, crop fields, rough ground, even a stone quarry. It sounds like a nice place to live. But the easement forbids building a house! Even if the owners wish to continue farming and managing the forest they will be denied the privilege of calling the land their home. Where are the descendants of whoever made this decision going to live? Who would want to own such a place? Whoever owns this ground will have all of the responsibilities of landownership, taxes, personal liability, insurance, without the greatest benefit of living on the land and making decisions for the land based on the best use at the time. If they decided to sell, who would be interested? Maybe a hunting club, Ducks Unlimited, Quail Unlimited or an environmental group. At any rate, any list of potential buyers has been severely limited and as a direct result the value of the property has been reduced significantly ,A really scary point that I didn't know is that whoever bought the conservation easement can resell that easement. So, while I may feel comfortable with selling a conservation easement to, say, The Nature Conservancy, there's nothing to prevent them from reselling it to Greenpeace who may in turn resell to ELF. Now maybe that's not too likely but who's to say it won't or can't happen?
We were also told that 'in perpetuity' doesn't really mean forever in all cases. The government can still take it through imminent domain and if a parcel does get swallowed by a growing city, a court can decide to dissolve the easement. But how much money will be spent on legal expenses to get that done? Will there by anything left after the lawyers have collected their share?
Indiana's Classified Forest program gives a major tax break, lots of wonderful help from District Foresters and the option for your heirs to build a house on the farm, if not in the Classified Forest area, so they can enjoy all the benefits of land ownership. If they want to reverse the Classified Forest agreement on a small part of the land the only penalty they'll incur is 10 years of back taxes plus 10% and if the land has been in Classified Forest for eleven years, that's probably pretty much a wash. This gives your heirs the option of doing what's right for them at some distant future time without saddling them with a 100 year old agreement that they had nothing to do with. We'd like to think our heirs would thank us for saving 'the family farm' but in many cases I believe they'll curse us for making an agreement they don't need or want and that does not fit the time in which they live.
I understand the desire of anyone to not see their life's work in the woods destroyed. I'm a landowner myself and stand someday to be part owner of forest land that has been in my family over 100 years. I sincerely hope my sons will continue what my parents have started but I have no right to dictate to them or their children or grandchildren long after I'm gone. If you really believe that the day after your funeral your kids are going to bulldoze your woods and put in a trailer park, then leave it to your grandchildren, nieces, nephews, siblings, the Boy or Girl Scouts, IFEF, IFWOA or will it or sell it to someone who shares your views and you believe will carry on what you've started .Just don't strap generations as yet unborn with complex agreements that may not fit the world in which they live 100 or 200 years from today.
One positive thought about the 800 acres in Green County: I wouldn't mind owning the land next door.
Scott W. Ballentine, Jamestown, Indiana