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By Robert T. Dennis
Special to the Rappahannock News
This is written in response to questions often asked and concerns expressed by Rappahannock County lahdowners with whom I have discussed conservation easements during the last thirty years.
The thoughts outlined here are mine alone, and should not he taken to reflect the views of any organization or other person. They are based on my personal experience with easement concepts and realities dating back to the 1960‘s.
I became involved with the conservation easement idea because of my interest in conservation of agricultural and wildland resources of the eastern United States, an early understanding that funds for public purchase of such resources would always be insufficient, and a personal belief that it ought ideally to be possible to protect such resources through maximum reliance on voluntary landowner action and minimal use of governmental regulation.
In 1977. my family became the second in Rappahannock County to donate a conservation easement; not only did the family wish to be assured that our part of the Rappahannock River would never be lined with houses, I also wanted to learn directly how' easements really worked.
One thing that I have learned is that there are abroad in the land a great many misunderstandings about conservation easements. There are also questions to which certain, final answers do not yet exist; after all, the easement remains a new tool for which the ow'ner’s manual is still being written. So let’s get some of the misunderstandings out of the wav, then address a few questions.
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