Conservation-Based Estate Planning: Toward a Sustainable Future for Private Lands

Landowners who seek to manage ownership transitions while preserving conservation-related values must engage in the notoriously complex process of estate planning. Most scholarship on conservation-based estate planning has been undertaken from landowner perspectives, seeking to understand why some s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Society & natural resources 2024-06, Vol.37 (6), p.865-882
Main Authors: Roth, Paul A., Muth, Allyson B., Metcalf, Alexander L., Finley, James C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Conservation
Conservation easements
Estate planning
fragmentation
land conservation
land protection
land transfer
Landowners
legacy
Life events
natural resource extension
Natural resources
Ownership
parcelization
Planners
private landowners
Private lands
Scholarships & fellowships
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Summary:Landowners who seek to manage ownership transitions while preserving conservation-related values must engage in the notoriously complex process of estate planning. Most scholarship on conservation-based estate planning has been undertaken from landowner perspectives, seeking to understand why some succeed whereas others do not. Here, we expand this scholarship by including perspectives from professional planners. Combining their insights with past literature, we offer a framework of conservation-based estate planning that describes and normalizes key elements within stages of the process. Interview results emphasized the unique needs of conservation-based estate planning around non-monetary values, the relational nature of the planning process, and the temporal challenges and disruptive life events landowners commonly confront while planning. Our findings synthesize the extant literature, raise questions and needs for future work, and empower landowners, planners, and natural resource professionals to persevere through this difficult process and achieve their conservation-related goals from which we all benefit.
ISSN:0894-1920
1521-0723
DOI:10.1080/08941920.2024.2310229