On Wednesday January 10th, 2024 Conserve Utah Valley and Utah Open Lands hosted a conference on conserving agricultural lands. A goal common to both these organizations is to preserve the nature of rural communities by protecting greenspace and farmland from development. We invited public officials who have experience with creating conservation easements to join a panel discussion and share their insights. During the first part of the meeting officials from Park City and Midway, Utah, spoke about using municipal bonds to get funding for conservation easements. During the second half of the meeting, Wendy Fisher of Utah Open Lands talked about the legal and financial issues of establishing conservation easements. If you’re a city official or a citizen interested in protecting the rural nature of your community, you should watch the video entitled “Bonding For Conservation Easements.” If you’re a landowner interested in putting your land in a conservation easement, the other video, entitled “How Conservation Easements Work,” is the one for you. Or you can watch both. The next step is to communicate with Wendy Fisher, Wendy@UtahOpenLands.org, (801) 463-6156.
Part One: How Conservation Easements Work
Part Two: Securing Bonding
Hi, I’m wondering if Utah open lands and conservative valley have looked into federal funding for conservation easements? I follow a nonprofit called the Piedmont environmental council which operates in northern Virginia and has had huge success acquiring land using funding from the federal government. As well as donations of course. It might be worthwhile reaching out to PEC.
Hi Sara! Thanks for your comment. We’ve definitely looked into federal funding and are working with a landowner right now who has received some funding for conserving a piece of land. Federal funding is fairly competitive, but definitely a big help for putting land into conservation easements! We’ll also look into PEC and try to connect with them.
Best, Nathan