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Land trusts seek self-policing through accreditation
At 87, Elizabeth Crunk climbs aboard her green tractor and plows the same fields she has cultivated for decades.
“I love the soul of the land, I love the fresh air and I love the open space.”
Crunk lives in Bethesda, Tennessee, and actively farms the 251 acres that have been in her family for more than 100 years. Four years ago, she attached a permanent conservation easement to her property. That made it impossible for her or future owners to develop the land, which is located in the state’s fastest-growing county, Williamson, and one of its wealthiest.
 Elizabeth Crunk partnered with the Land Trust for Tennessee to ensure that her 251-acre farm will remain as undeveloped land for future generations to enjoy. |
The legal action ensures that the rolling hills, open fields and gently flowing streams will remain intact for future generations to enjoy.
Similar versions of Crunk’s story are being told all around the country as landowners look to land trusts to preserve rapidly vanishing landscapes. The practice of granting conservation easements to land trusts permanently limits the type and scope of development for virtually any chunk of open land deemed worthy of protection because of its natural, recreational, scenic, historical or other public value. Such properties include stretches of shoreline, wetlands, wildlife habitats, forests, prairies, farms and ranches.
A land trust is a nonprofit organization that works to protect open space by purchasing property, providing assistance to acquire land easements, and serving as stewards of property and easements. Today, approximately 34 million acres of U.S. land have easement rights held by land trusts. That’s more property than in all the national parks in the lower 48 states combined. In exchange for donating (or selling at a below-market rate) development rights to all or portions of their property, private landowners often qualify for estate- or income-tax savings.
This tax benefit has served as an incentive for many people to partner with one of the nation’s 1,500 operating land trusts. But it also has resulted in a few widely reported cases of abuse in the past couple of years. This sparked the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation to look into abuses of the federal tax code related to easement donations.
In 2005, the Senate Finance Committee conducted hearings to determine if federal regulations needed to be beefed up. Thus far, legislators have imposed no major sanctions.
But the national spotlight prompted calls for self-policing, and land trust leaders have moved forward with plans to establish a national standard of excellence that is the field’s version of a Good Housekeeping Seal of approval.
“Land trusts are widely respected for their dedication and integrity across the country but there were some abuses, some transactions that just didn’t hold up to scrutiny, such as easements on subdivisions and golf courses,” said Rand Wentworth, president of Land Trust Alliance (LTA), a Mott Foundation grantee since 1997. To date, Mott has provided $2.4 million in support to the Washington, D.C.-based association for its work in the Great Lakes region and Southeastern U.S.
In late 2004, the LTA Board of Directors commissioned a group of land trust leaders to seek input from fellow conservationists about how to build strong organizations while also ensuring public confidence in the field.
One year later, the group’s major recommendation was announced: Create a voluntary accreditation program that would provide independent reviews of land trust operations.
“The federal investigation has accelerated the evolution of land trust quality. It has caused us to acknowledge that we all need to chin up to a higher bar,” Wentworth said.
“As good as we have been, the time has come for a uniform national standard. This is an important step forward for land trusts.”
LTA’s efforts to promote a uniform set of standards dates back to 1989, when the organization published the first edition of “Land Trust Standards and Practices.” LTA’s updated version of those standards will serve as the building blocks for the accreditation program, which is scheduled to be launched this year. The practices and procedures will be tested on an initial group of land trusts in 2007, and the program is expected to be at full capacity in 2008.
Land trusts seeking accreditation will be judged against 42 indicators that will help determine whether a land trust is operating in a legal, ethical and sound manner, and whether it has the capacity to serve as a longtime steward of the property and easements entrusted to its care.
For example, applicants for accreditation must demonstrate, among other things, strength in board accountability, fundraising practices, compliance with tax codes, site inspections, easement monitoring and enforcement, and landowner relationships.
Throughout the accreditation process, the LTA plans to provide information and training to make it easier for land trusts to meet compliance requirements, including an array of free and downloadable Web materials outlining elements of the existing standards and practices.
The accreditation program has gained supporters inside and outside the land trust field, including an endorsement from Bruce Knight, chief executive officer for the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The federal agency falls under the Department of Agriculture and is responsible for the conservation of private agricultural land. NRCS has 12,000 employees and a federal budget of $3.3 billion.
“There is a tremendous need for an accreditation program to increase consistency among conservation easements, discourage bad actors, reduce instances of inflated appraisals, and ensure better monitoring and management of easements,” Knight said. “I strongly support an accreditation program for all prospective easement holders.”
Initially, there was some murmuring within the land trust community about the cost of accreditation, likely to range from $2,000 to $4,500 for each five-year term. Also, the prospect of increased paperwork has created anxiety for some conservationists, especially for the estimated 50 percent of land trusts in the U.S. that are operated entirely by volunteers, Wentworth said.
Overall, however, the vast majority of LTA members are pleased with the framework for the accreditation program, he said. A recent survey showed 80 percent of members polled are supportive of voluntary accreditation, a dramatic jump from the single-digit percentage of members who were supportive of the idea initially.
Many members have expressed a sense of ownership for the program because they were invited to provide input throughout the development process.
“One guy wrote me some really harsh words earlier,” Wentworth said. “But he has come back to me and said, ‘I support this outcome. I was just afraid we were going to lose the soul of the land trust movement.’ We won his support through an extensive public involvement process that included land trusts in the design of the program.”
While some land trusts are small, locally run, all-volunteer operations, many others routinely handle complicated real estate transactions that are often valued in the millions of dollars.
The Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy (GTRLC), located in Traverse City in the northwestern Lower Peninsula of Michigan, falls into the latter category.
GTRLC Executive Director Glen Chown said the land trust has long placed a premium on incorporating the highest fiscal and ethical standards into its work, and welcomes the field’s move toward national accreditation.
“This allows a close-lens look at land trusts and provides them with a stamp of approval, which says to potential donors and to the local community, ‘We take [these] policies and procedures very seriously and we pass muster.’”
In February 2006, GTRLC successfully completed its “Coastal Campaign,” which raised $35.4 million to protect more than 6,000 scenic acres of land, which includes undeveloped shoreline along Lake Michigan, prime fruit-growing farmland, sand dunes and forests. The funds came from the public and private sectors and also the foundation community, including $7.75 million in support from Mott.
In addition to raising funds and public awareness, the work of land trusts typically involves understanding specific areas of federal tax law, and it sometimes requires a grasp of public funding requirements for major projects, said Jeanie Nelson, president of the Land Trust for Tennessee and a LTA board member. Her previous career as an attorney has come in handy more than once in her current roles.
Nelson’s group is one of those out front in the process, with its board and staff already prepared to go before the accreditation committee. But the move toward standardization goes beyond securing the future of a single organization, she said.
“What we’re doing now, the accreditation program, is helping ensure the credibility of the land trust movement.”
Nelson regularly works with Tennessee residents like Crunk, the Bethesda farmer with the passion for preserving the state’s scenic landscapes.
But Crunk’s farmland is different from a lot of other easement properties because it probably won’t be sold in the next decade or two because multiple generations of family members are committed to keeping the land within the family — and looking much as it does today.
“Everything around here is big development with monstrous homes. There’s no room to grow a garden, have a few head of cattle and do whatever you need to do to survive,” she said. “I’m leaving space to live and raise a family and maybe raise some potatoes.”
Crunk’s relatives, including her niece, Bettye Cason, support the longtime widow’s desire to keep the farmland free of construction crews.
“A land trust is the grandest thing that ever was,” said Cason, also a farmer.
“Land trusts preserve your heritage. This farm will be here not just for me, but for my kids, my grandkids, and now my great-granddaughter, who is less than a year old. She will be the eighth generation to live on this land.”