100,000 Conservation Easements and Counting!

A milestone for private landowner contributions to natural resource conservation was reached this week with the addition of the 100,000th easement to the National Conservation Easement Database (Easement Database; www.conservationeasement.us). This unique collaboration is the only comprehensive system for managing and accessing information on publicly and privately held conservation easements.  Reliable data about what lands are protected, and where, is essential to good planning and policy-making for conservation action, natural resource management, and responsible development.

“Much of the most vital wildlife habitat remaining in America is located on private lands, and voluntary partnerships with private landowners to establish easements are increasingly important to ensure that it is conserved for future generations,” said Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell. “The National Conservation Easement Database will allow us to understand the scope of easements nationwide and help us to establish new partnerships for the benefit both of landowners and wildlife and other natural resources.”

“Until the Easement Database was created, it was impossible to see or access information on conservation easements on a national basis,” said Carlton Owen, President and CEO of the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (the Endowment), who conceived the project. “With this milestone, data is now available on more than 19.5 million acres of privately and publicly held easements. And, this information is available to anyone, for free, in a user-friendly format,” he added.

The Easement Database is a voluntary and secure system. It was created through a collaboration that includes the Conservation Biology Institute, Defenders of Wildlife, Ducks Unlimited, NatureServe, and The Trust for Public Land. Landowner privacy is a priority and landowner names and other sensitive information are not available on the Easement Database. Quality control is also an important feature; all easements are thoroughly reviewed before being added to the database.

“Although 100,000 easements is a lot, much work remains to be done,” Owen said. “We estimate that about 55% of privately held easements and 79% of publicly-held easements are in the database. The Easement Database team is constantly working to find, review, and add new easements to the system.”

The Endowment is the project’s largest funder, which has also attracted financial support from the USDA Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, the Knobloch Family Foundation, and the Graham Foundation.