LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Congress passed HR 4853 Dec. 16, and President Obama signed the bill Dec. 17. This bill includes a renewal of tax incentives for private landowners who protect their land with a voluntary conservation easement agreement.

Conservation easements can be placed on lands with high agricultural, natural or scenic value. The incentive had expired at the end of 2009, but has now been renewed through the end of 2011, and is retroactive to January 1, 2010.

Conservation-minded landowners now have until Dec. 31, 2011, to take advantage of a significant tax deduction for donating a voluntary conservation agreement to permanently protect important natural, agricultural or historic resources on their land.

The bill is viewed as particularly valuable to preserving working family farms and ranches.

In Lake County, the organization to which landowners can donate a conservation easement is the Lake County Land Trust.

Land owners maintain ownership and management of their land, can pass the land on to their heirs or can sell their lands. What they, and future landowners, forego are future development rights, thereby conserving the agricultural or natural values of the land.

The enhanced incentive applies to a landowner’s federal income tax. It:

• Raises the deduction a donor can take for donating a voluntary conservation agreement from 30 percent of their income in any year to 50 percent;

• Allows farmers and ranchers to deduct up to 100 percent of their income; and

• Increases the number of years over which a donor can take deductions from six to 16 years.

“Our whole community wins when thoughtful landowners conserve their land this way, protecting wildlife habitat, scenic landscapes, productive agricultural lands, and all the societal benefits the come along with conservation of natural and agricultural lands,” said Catherine Koehler, executive director of the Lake County Land Trust.

“Conservation agreements have become an important tool nationally for protecting our watersheds, farms, and natural landscapes,” Koehler explained. “Nationally, about one quarter of lands conserved annually are conserved through conservation easements.”

The Lake County Land Trust joins America’s 1,700 land trusts and their two million supporters in thanking Congress for making this important conservation tool available.

According to the Land Trust Alliance, the national organization that provides a voice in Washington, DC, for land trusts, bills to make this incentive permanent have 274 House and 41 Senate co-sponsors from all 50 states, including majorities of Democrats and Republicans in the House.

This legislation is supported by more than 60 national agricultural, sportsmen’s and conservation organizations.

To learn more about the enhanced incentive, contact the Lake County Land Trust at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 707-262 0707, or find information at the Land Trust Alliances Web site, www.lta.org/easementincentive.