This is Part 2 of a series of blog entries that focuses on conservation easements and fee simple acquisitions. Part 1 provides an overview of the debate over the use of conservation easements vs. fee simple acquisitions.

The need to consider particular conservation goals for each property when determining the appropriate conservation tool is underscored in a recent report to the Washington Legislature, titled “Conservation Tools,” prepared for the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office by GordonDerr and ENTRIX.

The Conservation Tools report concludes that fee acquisitions have a greater potential to achieve conservation goals that require control over an entire parcel. On the other hand, conservation easements have a greater potential to achieve conservation goals when the property’s conservation values can be targeted and segregated from conflicting uses under a single ownership or when a primary conservation goal is the preservation of working lands such as farms, ranches, or timberlands.

According to the Conservation Tools report, a comparison of the true cost of fee acquisitions and conservation easements over time depends on several assumptions about their relative long-term costs (including assumptions about the likelihood of future events such as trespass, hazardous substances liability, challenges to conservation easements, and so on).  The report states that the total cost of most conservation easements is unlikely to exceed the fee simple cost, but in some cases the long-term costs can be comparable.

Finally, the report concludes that fee acquisitions generally provide more flexibility than conservation easements in responding to future changes, but that conservation easements can be drafted to include dynamic terms that provide some flexibility. Whether the cost or the need for flexibility is determinative in selecting a conservation tool will often depend on the particular conservation goal to be achieved.