A California land trust steward has just announced plans to conserve 1,600 acres at the confluence of the Tuolumne and San Joaquin rivers. The deal would “benefit future generations for many years to come,” said Patrick Koepele, the deputy executive director of the Tuolumne River Trust.
That has been the moving spirit behind land conservation across the country. Sometimes, as with the Dos Rios Ranch in California’s Central Valley, public and private partners and government agencies put up much of the money needed to reach the goal (in this case, nearly two-thirds of the $21.8 million needed). The floodplain area will be conserved for water management, recreation and wildlife habitat.
Acquisition is the yin of conserving land. But increasingly, as I reported in an article in Sunday’s paper, much of the time and money that private land trusts have devoted to acquiring land is being diverted to defending the conservation restrictions they have already put in place.
The yang of conservation is the need to guard what has been given to future generations.
Which is where a new nonprofit insurance company, the Terrafirma Risk Retention Group, comes in.
The idea of Terrafirma, just approved for nonprofit status by the Internal Revenue Service, is to give small land trusts a deep-pocketed ally. It will essentially be an insurance company with a broad-based structure.
Rob Aldrich, a spokesman for the Land Trust Alliance, the national organization that organized the company, said Terrafirma would be owned by its members and insure the costs of upholding conservation easements that are violated or are under legal attack. It will also provide information on risk management to land, he said in an e-mail.
by Felicity Barringer, NY Times | Read more:
Photo: Douglas Steakley/River Partners
