What is a Conservation Easement?

A conservation easement is a legal agreement between the landowner and the land trust which protects the environmental value of the property by restricting the way the land can be used (including development). The landowner retains the right to sell the land, but the easement will always remain with the land, protecting it from development in perpetuity. Conservation easements generally reduce the value of land because development rights have been restricted.

For answers to Frequently Asked Questions about easements including potential tax benefits and landowner rights, please visit Gathering Waters website.

Aldo Leopold, the famous Wisconsin conservationist, wrote about developing a land ethic in his 1949 book, A Sand County Almanac: 

“We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us.  When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” 

A primary goal of the Kenosha/Racine Land Trust is to help landowners who have such an ethic protect their land from development.  Leopold would be pleased to hear that increasing numbers of Racine and Kenosha County landowners are contacting the Land Trust to do just that.  These people love their farmland, prairie, woods, and wetlands and loathe the thought of the land being bulldozed some day for another development. 

Please contact us if you are interested in protecting the environmental value of your land by donating a conservation easement to the Kenosha/Racine Land Trust. (See address and phone number below.)

What is a Land Trust?

Land Trusts are not-for-profit organizations that work to conserve land through conservation easements or acquisitions. They vary greatly in size and may be made up of both volunteers and staff.  The number of land trusts in the United States is increasing, but we are losing land to developers faster than we can protect the wetlands, forests, and scenic vistas in our communities.

Land Trusts adopt guidelines to operate in the public's interest by conducting solid programs for land transactions and stewardship.  The newly formed Land Trust Accreditation Commission will provide independent verification of a Land Trust's ability to operate in an ethical, legal and technically sound manner and ensure the long-term protection of land in the public interest. K/RLT is taking part in this accreditation process.

View the latest Land Trust Standards and Practices document below.

A Brief History

of the Schmitz Family Farm

The story of America is that we all came from somewhere else.

My great-grandfather, Nicholas Schmitz, was born in Germany in 1826. He married my great-grandmother, Gertrude Kramer (born in 1818) on July 10, 1854, in what was then the Kingdom of Prussia. In May of 1857, they joined the wave of European immigrants to America, entering by way of the port of New York. On the voyage...

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