The Pingree Forest Easement:
A Summary
"It is the purpose of this Easement to maintain the Property forever in its present and historic primarily undeveloped condition as a working forest, and to conserve and/or enhance forest and wildlife habitats, shoreline protection, and historic public recreation opportunities on the Property for present and future generations." -- The Easement
A conservation easement is a legal agreement that transfers a portion of the property rights on a specific piece of property from the landowner to an independent organization. In general, conservation easements restrict the right of a landowner, and all subsequent landowners, to develop the property for any uses other than forestry and open space. In exchange, the property value is reduced, the landowner may receive substantial savings in their property and estate taxes, and the land is protected forever from development. Within that general framework, there is plenty of room for the landowner and the conservation organization to tailor a specific easement that meets their shared goals.
The proposed easement between Pingree Associates, Inc. and the New England Forestry Foundation covers 754,673 acres of Pingree-owned land in northern and western Maine. Since each conservation easement is different, we have summarized the details of the proposed Pingree Forest Easement below. Three major issues come up in the text of the easement: development rights, public access and recreation, and forest management activities.
Development rights:
The primary purpose of the easement is to protect the property forever through the restriction of development rights. The proposed Easement specifies the following restrictions on the use of the Pingree lands:
- No subdivision of the Property into tracts of less than 1,000 acres in size without the Grantee's approval.
- New residential structures may not be for permanent habitation and may be constructed only for the accomplishment of forestry and related road construction, and any such improvements, except for road construction, shall be sited to have minimal impact on conservation values of the Property. Existing structures may be maintained, repaired and replaced.
- No residential, commercial, or industrial uses of the Property shall be permitted except for existing uses, forest management activities, and commercial and industrial uses associated with forest management.
- No more than one percent of the Property shall be in active gravel use at any one time. Gravel pits may not be greater than 10 acres in size and expansion of active gravel pits requires equivalent reclamation following Natural Resource Conservation Service guidelines.
- Forestry and forestry activities must be conducted in accordance with a plan prepared by a professional forester and shall be subject to the Landowner and Forest Management guidelines attached to and incorporated in the Easement. These guidelines are summarized below.
Public Access:
Public access issues are complicated in Maine. Maine law, in the form of the Great Ponds Act, allows public access across undeveloped private land to all lakes and ponds greater than ten acres in size. There are numerous lakes and ponds in this proposed easement larger than 10 acres in size. However, the Pingree family was concerned about the future ramifications of incorporating public access into the Easement. Such a provision might entail obligations to provide access across other privately owned lands, since there are no public roads leading into the area. Furthermore, NEFF didn't want to buy public access, since our primary purpose was to protect the land by purchasing the development rights. Therefore, the document as written does not guarantee public access to the land.
At the same time, the Pingree family didn't want anything in the Easement to extinguish the current public recreational use of the lands, including hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, boating, snowmobiling, etc. Therefore, public recreation was incorporated into the purpose section of the document, which assures that "historic public recreation opportunities" will be maintained or enhanced. In recent years, the Pingree lands have seen about 90,000 visitor-days each year.
Forest management guidelines:
The proposed easement takes a unique and creative approach toward the forest management activities that will occur on the easement lands. Many conservation easements are very specific about forest management guidelines, some even going so far as to mandate stocking levels of specific species and approval of all management plans on the property. On a property of this size, however, such requirements would be unreasonably difficult to monitor. Therefore, we have attached to the easement a set of forest management guidelines, which are roughly equivalent to the green certification standards. The Pingree family forestlands are already green certified and already adhere to these guidelines. Within the guidelines, the Pingree family can continue to practice the good stewardship that it has for decades.
The overall goal of the landowner is to work with the natural forest processes to grow sawtimber of superior quality and value over the long term, while always seeking to enhance the underlying value of the asset. In that context, the landowner will practice sustainable forestry, incorporating all ecological components and values into the management of the forest resource. The Easement requires the landowner to:
- Use silvicultural practices that provide for a sustained yield of timber products while recognizing that ecological, aesthetic, wildlife, and other non-timber values are important components of the forest.
- Maintain individual stands in a well-stocked, productive condition.
- Strive to maintain the original diversity of natural forests in both species and structure, using up-to-date, scientifically based silvicultural practices.
- Maintain and protect riparian ecosystems, using riparian corridor management as the primary tool to address wildlife habitat, fisheries, and watershed management.
- Routinely incorporate wildlife management practices into timber management to retain or create desirable features such as riparian habitat, wildlife cavity trees, mast availability, logs and brush for shelter, promoting vertical and horizontal diversity, vernal pools, and featured species management. Wildlife management considers all species of wildlife, beyond game and socially important species.
- Use pesticides only when absolutely necessary and implement management practices designed to minimize or eliminate future dependence on pesticides.
- Strive to maintain no more than 3% of the Property in a clearcut condition, except that 7% additional acres may be clearcut as long as every additional clearcut acre is matched with an acre of land that was planted or precommercially thinned in the previous year. Clearcutting may only be used for removal of poor-quality, intolerant, understocked, short-lived, or residual overstories; ecologically appropriate improvement or creation of wildlife habitat; removal of stands that would be at high risk for windthrow if partially harvested; or plantation establishment and harvest.
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