Purpose
The purpose of this Performance Measure (PM) is to provide a general measure of a project’s contribution to landscape or natural resource conservation through voluntary acquisitions, including easements.
Likely Project Categories
This PM would likely be applicable for projects in the following category:
- Acquisition, including easements
Variations
This PM is further classified into the following two variations.
Method
- Conservation Easement—conservation easements are a restriction placed on a piece of property to protect its associated resources. They are voluntarily donated or sold by the landowner. While the land remains in private ownership, the easement constitutes a legally binding agreement that limits certain types of uses or prevents development from taking place on the land in perpetuity.
- Fee Title Acquisitions—fee title acquisitions result in full ownership of the property. Like easements, fee-title ownership to a property can be donated or sold by the landowner.
Conservation Purpose
- Recreation
- Working Landscape
- Natural Resource protection, e.g. species, wetland and water course, water supply
- Historical/Cultural
Guidance on Applying this PM to Your Project
This is a recommended approach to collecting data and reporting on this PM. Grantees are asked to further evaluate how these steps may best be applied to their specific projects and to discuss with SNC any steps or considerations that may be unique.
Grantees should collect and provide the following information:
- Method (Fee Title Acquisition or Conservation Easement).
- Total Number of Physical Acres Conserved per Method.
- Conservation Purpose (check all that apply and provide number of acres for each purpose):
- Recreation
- Working Landscape
- Natural Resource protection, e.g. species, wetland and water course, water supply
- Historical/Cultural
Other
Cost for implementing this performance measures will be minimal and no specialized expertise is required.