Conservation: will the General Assembly catch up to Virginians?

Do you think the Commonwealth of Virginia should spend public funds to prevent the loss of exceptional natural areas to development? Do you think it’s very important to protect Virginia’s natural and open space resources?

If you do think along these lines, according to the Virginia Outdoors Survey, released in August, you are part of Virginia’s majority. The first question got a “yes’ from 78 percent of Virginians responding, and 67 percent of respondents answered “yes” to the second.

Responding to these survey results, Jerry Gray, president of the Virginia Forest Watch, said, “The General Assembly must be responsive to the clear and unwavering concerns of the majority of Virginia citizens for the preservation of our natural heritage,”

The General Assembly will definitely be facing this issue in January, because open-space land conservation is Governor Tim Kaine’s top natural resource priority. He has set a goal of protecting an additional 400,000 acres of open space in Virginia during his term.

One way to accomplish this goal is by creating conservation easements. These easements allow landowners to voluntarily protect private land for future generations.

“Conservation easements have the effect of forever retiring the development rights on open spaces,” said Tammy Belinsky, staff attorney with WildLaw and project manager for the Virginia Forest Watch. “Tax credits in exchange for the donation of the rights in the public interest are one way to compensate landowners for conservation of the environmental services their land provides to the community. Virginia already has a strong state-level tax incentive in addition to the federal tax credit program. This year, the conservation community also will advocate for the creation of a state-level matching-fund program to assist local governments with the outright purchase of development rights.”

These tools are already working in Virginia. Virginia’s citizens, including many of its public-spirited landowners, want to use them. For this reason, it is critical that the legislature provide more resources for this purpose. The Virginia Forest Watch and other Virginia conservation organizations will be joining together to make sure that the General Assembly responds with the needed funds.

“The Virginia Outdoors Foundation staff is swamped right now with conservation easement requests and is having to close the door for this year now to be able to process those easements already at hand,” said Rupert Cutler, Virginia Outdoors Foundation Trustee, and a member of the Virginia Forest Watch. “There is a limit to how many easements the current VOF staff can handle.”

In addition to easements, the Commonwealth and its localities can buy land. Cutler said, “The other part of the land-conservation-equation is the acquisition of key tracts of open space in fee simple for natural areas, parks, forests, and public access to lakes and rivers either by purchase from, or donation by, the landowner.”

For more information, contact the Virginia Forest Watch at (276) 479-2176 or vafw@mounet.com.