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Conservation Easements W H AT A R E T H E Y, A N D CO U L D T H E Y B E R I G H T FO R YO U ? STORY BY MARK STEINBACH, PH.D. TEXAS LAND CONSERVANCY
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rivate land ownership has always been a distinguishing characteristic of Texas—from farms and ranches that have been in the same family for generations to recently purchased second homes in idyllic rural areas. Whatever the situation, many Texas landowners face the same dilemma: how do you ensure that the land you love looks the way that it does forever? Using a tool called a conservation easement, landowners can ensure that the integrity and natural condition of their land remains intact for generations.
Conservation in Texas
With 95 percent of Texas (approximately 163 million acres) held by private landowners, Texas has far and away the most privately held land in the country—more than Montana, Kansas, and California combined. Unfortunately, we are also leading the nation in the amount of rural land lost annually to development. According to the Texas Land Trends from the Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute (NRI), over two million acres of agriculture land has been converted to some other use between 1997 and 2017, and 1.2 million acres have been lost in the last five years alone. Population growth in Texas means new residents need new homes to buy and apartments to rent, leading developers to covet the farms, ranches, pastures, and open space in proximity to metropolitan areas. This slow crawl of development and changing land use is imperceptible on a day-to-day basis but drastic over the long run. Relative to its size, Texas has very little land dedicated to conservation. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) manages a little over one million acres in state parks and wildlife management areas (WMAs), and the remainder is split between the United States National Forest Service and National Park Service. This means the bulk of land and wildlife conservation in Texas falls to private landowners.
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