Press Release:
Congress’ “fiscal cliff” deal renewed a tax incentive for private landowners—especially working family farmers and ranchers—who protect their land with a voluntary conservation agreement. The incentive, which had expired at the end of 2011, helped LTLT (Land Trust for the Little Tennessee) work with private landowners in Western North Carolina to conserve 2,900 acres of productive agricultural lands and natural areas between 2006 and 2011. This included preserving important cultural lands such as the historic Camp Sequoyah Canoe Camp on Nantahala Lake (see attached).
Conservation-minded landowners now have until December 31, 2013 to take advantage of a significant tax deduction for donating a voluntary conservation agreement to permanently protect important natural or historic resources on their land.
“Our whole community wins when thoughtful landowners conserve their land this way, protecting wildlife habitat, clean drinking water, scenic landscapes, recreational spaces, and productive agricultural lands,” said Paul Carlson, LTLT Executive Director. “Conservation agreements have become an important tool nationally for protecting our watersheds, farms and forests, increasing the pace of private land conservation by a third – to over a million acres a year. LTLT joins America’s 1,700 land trusts and their two million supporters in thanking Congress for making this important conservation tool available,” he said.
When landowners donate a conservation easement to LTLT, they maintain ownership and management of their land and can sell or pass the land on to their heirs. While each conservation easement is specific to the land and landowner, most easements allow for limited future development.
The enhanced incentive applies to a landowner’s federal income tax. It:
- Raises the deduction a donor can take for donating a voluntary conservation agreement from 30% of their income in any year to 50%;
- Allows farmers and ranchers to deduct up to 100% of their income; and
- Increases the number of years over which a donor can take deductions from 6 to 16 years.
Throughout LTLT’s seven county project area the incentive is having a real impact. Emory Crawford and his family had a unique opportunity to preserve a piece of Western North Carolina that holds a special place in their own memory and in the memories of other boys now grown into men. The land is an historic seven-acre site on the northwest shore of Nantahala Lake in Macon County. In the early 1920’s, C. Walter “Chief” Johnson founded Camp Sequoyah – with a main summer camp in Weaverville and the Canoe Camp on Nantahala Lake. In the late 1970’s, Emory had the opportunity to purchase the old camp on the Lake. As development came to the Nantahala community, the Crawfords sought ways to protect the spot without giving up control of it. The expanded tax incentive made it feasible for them to convey a conservation easement to LTLT. “We wanted to preserve the camp as it was for future generations to experience what we experienced and what our kids and their kids experienced,” says Crawford. “Enough things fell into place just at the right time to allow that to happen.”
According to the Land Trust Alliance, the national organization that provides a voice for land trusts in Washington, DC, last year’s bills to make this incentive permanent had 311 House and 28 Senate co-sponsors from 47 states, including majorities of Democrats and Republicans in the House. This legislation is further supported by more than 65 national agricultural, sportsmen and conservation organizations.
