- Individually plan all land and conservation agreement projects so that:
- The land trust identifies the best available conservation strategy for the property
- The property’s important conservation values are protected
- The project furthers the land trust’s mission and goals
- Assess the stewardship implications of each project and the land trust’s capacity to meet those obligations
Background
This practice calls for each project to be tailored to the specifics of the property through some form of project planning. The process may take the form of an actual project plan, a completed project planning data sheet, or may be reflected in the correspondence, maps or other documents related to the project. The formal or informal project plan becomes the guide for the next steps in the protection process. The planning documentation becomes particularly important when there is more than one person working on the project. The project plan or data sheets prepared by the land trust representative evaluating the property, for instance, can be essential for the lawyer drafting the conservation agreement. Initial project planning should evaluate the conservation values and protection strategies against the land trust’s mission and capacity. Project planning should also include the identification of the conservation values and the potential threats that could significantly impair those values (threats may vary by geographic region and land trust mission). In addition, project plans should evaluate the land trust’s and landowner’s goals for the project, and then devise protection strategies accordingly.