Enhancing Conservation Options: An Argument for Statutory Recognition of Options to Purchase Conservation Easements (OPCEs)

46 Pages Posted: 23 Apr 2015 Last revised: 5 Jan 2017

See all articles by Federico Cheever

Federico Cheever

University of Denver Sturm College of Law (deceased)

Jessica Owley

University of Miami - School of Law

Date Written: April 23, 2015

Abstract

The most dynamic component of the conservation movement in the United States for the past three decades has been land conservation transactions. In the United States, land conservation organizations have protected roughly 40 million acres of land through transactions. Most of these acres have been protected using conservation easements. Climate change threatens the vast conservation edifice created by land conservation transactions. The tools of land conservation transactions are, traditionally, stationary. Climate change means that the resources that land conservation transactions were intended to protect may no longer remain on the land protected. Options to purchase conservation easements (OPCEs) have long played a modest but important role in conservation law practice. In the world climate change is creating, with its substantial uncertainties and shifting windows of opportunity, OPCEs can serve more complicated and strategic purposes. The ability of OPCEs to serve important roles in protecting land in the context of uncertainty would be significantly increased if state legislatures amend current conservation easement statutes to (1) specifically recognize OPCEs, (2) immunize OPCEs from a range of potential common law challenges, (3) guarantee the durability and transferability of OPCEs, and (4) integrate OPCEs into the burgeoning body of conservation easement law. These statutory amendments would do for OPCEs what conservation easement statutes have done for conservation easements: transform them into an essential multi-purpose tool for conservation in a changing world.

Suggested Citation

Cheever, Federico and Owley, Jessica, Enhancing Conservation Options: An Argument for Statutory Recognition of Options to Purchase Conservation Easements (OPCEs) (April 23, 2015). Harvard Environmental Law Review, Forthcoming, U Denver Legal Studies Research Paper No. 15-16, SUNY Buffalo Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2016-027, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2598298 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2598298

Federico Cheever (Contact Author)

University of Denver Sturm College of Law (deceased) ( email )

Jessica Owley

University of Miami - School of Law ( email )

P.O. Box 248087
Coral Gables, FL 33146
United States

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