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By Clare Robinson
Many woodlot owners who are good stewards of their land wonder how to ensure that future landowners care for it in the same way. A legal tool called a working forest easement has recently become an option in Nova Scotia. Unlike a "forever wild" easement, which is common here, a working forest easement permanently protects woodlots from development and poor logging practices, while still allowing forestry.
A future issue of Legacy will explore how working forest easements became so popular in New England over the past 30 years, and look at the potential for this tool in Nova Scotia. In the meantime, let's review other options for owners who want to want to protect their forestland from development.
Nova Scotians are interested in conserving their land for a whole host of reasons. Many are driven by their desire to continue to enjoy the wild and natural environment, while others want to protect rare natural features. Some want to ensure their descendants experience the land as they did. Landowners are also motivated to protect their property because of potential tax breaks.
Whatever the inspiration, several options and incentives exist, whether you wish to continue owning your land or are ready to sell or donate it. First, let's look at conservation opportunities for those who wish to maintain ownership.
A conservation easement allows you to protect your land, and benefit from potential tax breaks, while maintaining ownership and some rights to use your property. It is a legal agreement between a landowner and a land trust. Land restrictions specified in the easement are registered with the property deed and bind future landowners.
The organization that holds the easement monitors the property to ensure it is cared for according to your wishes. It can apply to your entire property, or only the portion with important natural features. You can continue to enjoy the land subject to the agreed upon restrictions.
Lake frontage on the Hemlock Hill property (all photos courtesy of Nova Scotia Nature Trust)
Financial incentives can be significant. In the short term, you may receive a tax receipt for the value of the easement, and this could lower your income tax or the tax owed by heirs. Since 2004, lands under a conservation easement in Nova Scotia are exempt from property tax.
With the landowner's consent, properties with outstanding conservation value may also be protected under a Provincial government designation, such as a Wilderness Area or Nature Reserve. These also benefit from government monitoring and enforcement. They, too, are exempt from property tax.
If you no longer wish to own your property, but want to ensure ecological features remain protected, you can donate or sell your property to a land trust. Donating the land or selling it below market value, with the balance considered a donation (called a "split receipt"), may provide you with an income tax break or reduce capital gains taxes where the value of your land has increased significantly.
Pursuing these options with a reserved life estate provides the tax break at the time of the sale or donation, and you and your children can live out your lives there. You can also donate your property to a land trust after death through a bequest.
According to Alice Morgan, land stewardship coordinator with the Nova Scotia Nature Trust, land trusts can provide flexibility to landowners wishing to protect all or a portion of their land. Conservation easements give landowners the option to protect that portion of their property with the highest conservation value while retaining ownership of the entire lot. In other cases, landowners have subdivided their land and donated or sold the parcel with high conservation value to a land trust.
"Often we work with landowners who have a home or cottage on a lot that has ecologically significant lake or river frontage, or a large stand of old growth forest," said Morgan. "They want to continue to use the dwelling and protect the natural features. By working with us they can parcel off the dwelling either through the terms of a conservation easement or through subdividing the land and protect the surrounding natural features."
Old growth hemlock canopy at Hemlock Hill
Morgan adds that, although they wish they could protect all the land that is offered to them, they must focus on the most ecologically significant sites.
Deep Brook Bog Conservation Lands is a 12 acre wetland site the NSNT purchased in the Pleasant River Watershed, in Queens County. It is a critically important habitat for endangered Blanding's turtles. In this case, the landowner subdivided the bog from the rest of his property, where he farms and manages the forest.
Less than 0.01% of old growth forest remains in Nova Scotia, and recently the Nature Trust acquired Hemlock Hill, a 133-acre old growth forest property on the St. Mary's River. Treasured by paddlers, birders, anglers and local residents, it has over four kilometres of undisturbed river shoreline and is home to nationally endangered birds and turtles. The purchase of this $260,000 property was made possible through an ongoing fundraising campaign.
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