Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T03:57:12.416Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rethinking property rights: comparative analysis of conservation easements for wildlife conservation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2013

ADENA R. RISSMAN
ADENA R. RISSMAN*
Affiliation:
Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin at Madison, 1630 Linden Drive, Madison WI 53706, USA
*
*Correspondence: Dr Adena Rissman Tel: +1 608 263 4356 e-mail: arrissman@wisc.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Conservation easements (or conservation covenants) are commonly conceptualized as acquisitions of sticks in a ‘bundle of rights’ and are increasingly implemented for wildlife conservation on private lands. This research asks: (1) What are the possibilities and limitations of the conservation easement approach to wildlife conservation in contrasting rural and periurban regions? and (2) How does analysis of conservation easements differ when examining property as a bundle of rights or alternative metaphors? These questions were addressed through document analysis, interviews and GIS mapping in two regions where The Nature Conservancy deployed conservation easements for wildlife habitat: rural Lassen Foothills and periurban Tenaja Corridor, USA. Splitting the bundle allowed for site and region-specific easements with differences in permitted housing densities, land management and hunting. Easements focused on restricted rights rather than affirmative duties. The challenges of habitat connectivity in the fragmented Tenaja Corridor revealed the limits of parcel-based acquisition. Analysts and conservation practitioners should rethink the bundle of rights concept of property, considering a bundle of duties, powers and owners within a broader web of social and ecological interests, to understand the role of conservation acquisitions in contrasting landscape contexts.

Keywords

conservation easementsconservation covenantsdevelopmentland conservationland trustsprivate landsproperty conceptsproperty rightswildlife habitaturbanization
Type
Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , September 2013 , pp. 222 - 230
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arnold, C.A. (2002) The reconstitution of property: property as a web of interests. Harvard Environmental Law Review 26: 281–364.Google Scholar
Babbie, E.R. (2007) The Practice of Social Research. Belmont, CA, USA: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Barber, G. (2012) Bundle of rights approach to value. Private Landowner Network [www document]. URL http://www.privatelandownernetwork.org/plnlo/bundleofrights.aspGoogle Scholar
Bromley, D.W. & Hodge, I. (1990) Private property rights and presumptive policy entitlements: reconsidering the premises of rural policy. European Review of Agricultural Economics 17 (2): 197–214.Google Scholar
Byrd, K.B., Rissman, A.R. & Merenlender, A.M. (2009) Impacts of conservation easements for threat abatement and fire management in a rural oak woodland landscape. Landscape and Urban Planning 92 (2): 106–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheever, F. (1995) Public good and private magic in the law of land trusts and conservation easements: a happy present and a troubled future. Denver University Law Review 73: 1077–1102.Google Scholar
Cheever, F. (2001) Property rights and the maintenance of wildlife habitat: the case for conservation land transactions. Idaho Law Review 38: 431–452.Google Scholar
Daniels, T.L. (1991) The purchase of development rights: preserving agricultural land and open space. Journal of the American Planning Association 57 (4): 421–431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duncan, M.L. (2002) Reconceiving the bundle of sticks: land as a community-based resource. Environmental Law 32: 773–807.Google Scholar
Fairfax, S.K., Gwin, L., King, M.A., Raymond, L. & Watt, L.A. (2005) Buying Nature: The Limits of Land Acquisition as a Conservation Strategy, 1780–2004. Cambridge, MA, USA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Feldman, T.D. & Jonas, A.E.G. (2000) Sage scrub revolution? Property rights, political fragmentation, and conservation planning in Southern California under the federal Endangered Species Act. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90 (2): 256–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freyfogle, E.T. (2007) On Private Property: Finding Common Ground on the Ownership of Land. Boston, MA, USA: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Geisler, C.C. & Daneker, G. (2000) Property and Values: Alternatives to Public and Private Ownership. Washington, DC, USA: Island Press.Google Scholar
Goldstein, R.J. (1997) Green wood in the bundle of sticks: fitting environmental ethics and ecology into real property law. BC Environmental Affairs Law Review 25: 347–430.Google Scholar
Hardy, S.D. & Koontz, T.M. (2010) Collaborative watershed partnerships in urban and rural areas: different pathways to success? Landscape and Urban Planning 95: 79–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heasley, L. (2005) A Thousand Pieces of Paradise: Landscape and Property in the Kickapoo Valley. Madison, WI, USA: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Hilty, J. & Merenlender, A.M. (2003) Studying biodiversity on private lands. Conservation Biology 17 (1): 132–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hilty, J.A., Lidicker, W.Z. & Merenlender, A.M. (2006) Corridor Ecology: The Science and Practice of Linking Landscapes for Biodiversity Conservation. Washington, DC, USA: Island Press.Google Scholar
Hohfeld, W.N. (1913) Some fundamental legal conceptions as applied in judicial reasoning. Yale Law Journal 23: 16–59.Google Scholar
Hurley, J.M., Ginger, C. & Capen, D.E. (2002) Property concepts, ecological thought, and ecosystem management: a case of conservation policymaking in Vermont. Society and Natural Resources 15 (4): 295–312.Google Scholar
Kabii, T. & Horwitz, P. (2006) A review of landholder motivations and determinants for participation in conservation covenanting programmes. Environmental Conservation 33 (1): 11–20.Google Scholar
Kiesecker, J.M., Comendant, T., Grandmason, T., Gray, E., Hall, C., Hilsenbeck, R., Kareiva, P., Lozier, L., Naehu, P. & Rissman, A. (2007) Conservation easements in context: a quantitative analysis of their use by The Nature Conservancy. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 5 (3): 125–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, M.A. & Fairfax, S.K. (2006) Public accountability and conservation easements: learning from the Uniform Conservation Easement Act debates. Natural Resources Journal 46: 65–130.Google Scholar
Lippmann, J.O. (2006) The emergence of exacted conservation easements. Nebraska Law Review 84: 1043–1112.Google Scholar
Lueck, D. (1995) Property rights and the economic logic of wildlife institutions. Natural Resources Journal 35: 625–670.Google Scholar
Macpherson, C.B., ed. (1978) Property, Mainstream and Critical Positions. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Merenlender, A.M., Huntsinger, L., Guthey, G. & Fairfax, S.K. (2004) Land trusts and conservation easements: who is conserving what for whom? Conservation Biology 18 (1): 65–76.Google Scholar
Morrison, S.A. & Boyce, W.M. (2008) Conserving connectivity: some lessons from mountain lions in southern California. Conservation Biology 23 (2): 275–285.Google Scholar
Naughton-Treves, L. & Sanderson, S. (1995) Property, politics and wildlife conservation. World Development 23 (8): 1265–1275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nedelsky, J. (1990) Law, boundaries, and the bounded self. Representations 30: 162–189.Google Scholar
Newburn, D., Reed, S., Berck, P. & Merenlender, A. (2005) Economics and land-use change in prioritizing private land conservation. Conservation Biology 19 (5): 1411–1420.Google Scholar
Penner, J.E. (1996) The bundle of rights picture of property. UCLA Law Review 43: 711–820.Google Scholar
Raymond, L. & Fairfax, S.K. (1999) Fragmentation of public domain law and policy: an alternative to the ‘shift-to-retention’ thesis. Natural Resources Journal 39: 649–753.Google Scholar
Ribot, J.C. & Peluso, N.L. (2003) A theory of access. Rural sociology 68 (2): 153–181.Google Scholar
Rissman, A.R. (2010) Designing perpetual conservation agreements for land management. Rangeland Ecology and Management 63: 167–175.Google Scholar
Rissman, A.R., Lozier, L., Comendant, T., Kareiva, P., Kiesecker, J.M., Shaw, M.R. & Merenlender, A.M. (2007) Conservation easements: biodiversity protection and private use. Conservation Biology 21 (3): 709–718.Google Scholar
Riverside Local Agency Formation Commission (2006) Central Valley/Pass/Southwestern Riverside Co. Municipal Service Reviews. Riverside, Riverside County, CA, USA [www document]. URL http://www.lafco.org/opencms/MSR/MSR-CentralValley_Pass_Southwestern_Final/index.htmlGoogle Scholar
Rose, C.M. (1994) Property and Persuasion: Essays on the History, Theory, and Rhetoric of Ownership. Boulder, CO, USA: Westview PressGoogle Scholar
Rose, C.M. (1998) Canons of property talk, or, Blackstone's anxiety. Yale Law Journal 108: 601–632.Google Scholar
Sanjayan, M.A. & Crooks, K.R. (2005) Maintaining connectivity in urbanizing landscapes. In: Nature in Fragments: The Legacy of Sprawl, ed. Johnson, E.A. & Klemens, M.W., pp. 239–262. New York, NY, USA and Chichester, UK: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, J.M., Davis, F.W., McGhie, R.G., Wright, R.G., Groves, C. & Estes, J. (2001) Nature reserves: do they capture the full range of America's biological diversity? Ecological Applications 11 (4): 999–1007.Google Scholar
Sturm, A. (2010) Realtor Anne Sturm: homes, land, ranches, investments [www document]. URL http://www.anne4property.com/index.htmlGoogle Scholar
Tehama County (2009) Tehama County General Plan Update 2009–2029. Red Bluff, CA, USA [www document]. URL http://www.tehamagp.com/documents/final_general_plan/Tehama%20County%20General%20Plan%20March%202009.pdfGoogle Scholar
The Nature Conservancy (2011) The Lassen Foothills [www document]. URL http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/california/preserves/art6320.htmlGoogle Scholar
US Government (2011) US Code 16 USC1531 Endangered Species [www document]. URL http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2011-title16/pdf/USCODE-2011-title16-chap35.pdfGoogle Scholar
Yin, R.K. (2009) Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Thousand Oaks, CA, USA: Sage Publications, Inc.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

A. R. RISSMAN Supplementary Material

Appendix

Download A. R. RISSMAN Supplementary Material(File)
File 32.8 KB
Supplementary material: File

A. R. RISSMAN Supplementary Material

Appendix

Download A. R. RISSMAN Supplementary Material(File)
File 30.2 KB