>>893553I guess I'll follow up on what a conservation easement is:
Basically, you're donating a part of your ownership interest in the land. So, for most things that you own, you own every right possible. Consider my toaster: I own the right to use my toaster, to sell my toaster, to smash my toaster, to take my toaster apart and build a robot out of the parts... etc.
Same with land. If you own it free of any bank's mortgage, then you probably own all the rights. You have the right to do whatever you want to it. Live there, sell it, subdivide it, build whatever you want on it. Each one of those rights is valuable.
Taxes are owed taxes based on the value of your land. Great land, big tax burden. Shitty worthless land, not much taxes to pay for it. What makes land great or shitty? What it sells for on the open market. What to people buy land for? Not just to have it look nice, but for building shit on, or for tearing up for the resources.
So, with a conservation easement, you're basically giving up the rights to develop or harvest resources from the land. You "break off" your rights to build on the land, or to deforest it, dig a quarry, etc. So you take those rights, and you give them away (they are held by a land trust, which is a type of nonprofit, because someone always has to hold a right). The land trust can't use those rights because they're a nonprofit that has sworn not to do that, and you can't use them because you don't have them.
Now your giant, beautiful parcel is not worth much money, since it can't be used to build yuppie condos. So guess what? You don't own any significant taxes on the place. The land is the same as it ever was, and you can go on doing whatever you were doing, so long as that wasn't developing it.
As a perk, you might even get the land trust to come plant some nice trees on the land, or restore the creek you've been parking your old cars in since the dust bowl. land trusts are pretty cool (other than the nature conservancy).
