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Legislation from 1999 has reached a milestone in land protections.
Photo Above: Both banks of this section of Virginia’s Shenandoah River are under conservation easement.
Photo Courtesy of Hugh Kenny, The Piedmont Environmental Council.
Over the past two decades, thousands of Virginia property owners have donated land or volunteered to put their land under a conservation easement limiting development, and in exchange received a state tax credit. The program has now protected one million acres from the Virginia coast to the Blue Ridge Mountains.
That represents more than $4.7 billion in appraised value protected through roughly 4,500 donations yielding $1.9 billion in tax credits. A study by the Trust for Public Land and others in 2016 showed that for every $1 invested in conservation, $4 in natural goods and services is returned to Virginia’s economy.
“We had no idea that we could in such a short time, within our lifetimes, preserve one million acres,” said state Senator Creigh Deeds, who co-patroned the 1999 bipartisan legislation along with Senator Emmett Hanger creating the Virginia Land Preservation Tax Credit.
Land accepted into the program is protected for agricultural or forest value, open space, natural resources, biodiversity conservation or watershed or historic preservation. Landowners work with state agencies and nonprofit groups to design the property transfer or easement. There are 18 local land trusts in Virginia and a number of other organizations that work statewide including the 500-Year Forest Foundation and the Black Family Land Trust.
The tax credit program has helped make Virginia a national leader in saving working farms, timberlands, and spaces for hunting, fishing and other types of outdoor recreation, according David Perry of the Blue Ridge Land Conservancy.
“Our children and theirs will inherit a cleaner, healthier and more beautiful Virginia than we did,” Perry said.
The story above first appeared in our January / February 2024 issue.
