Land Protection through Conservation Easements:

A Winning Arrangement
by Jim Heyes  


Jim Heyes is the Director of Education and Communication at the New England Forestry Foundation (NEFF) in Groton, MA. He graduated from Williams College in 1996 and later studied community forestry in the Philippines as a Fulbright Scholar. He came to NEFF from his job as a lumber grader at Heyes Forest Products in Orange, MA.

With increasing development pressure on forestlands throughout New England, land protection continues to grow as a priority for state and federal agencies as well as environmental groups and nonprofits. This year, the State of Connecticut has markedly increased its budget allocation for the acquisition and protection of priority forestlands. However, the state still has no program in place for the protection of private forestlands through the purchase of conservation easements. Since land in southern New England is predominantly privately owned, successful conservation efforts must include partnerships between private landowners, state and federal agencies, and nonprofit organizations.

William B. Hull, a sawmill owner in Pomfret, Connecticut, and an advocate of protecting private forestlands through conservation easements, has embarked on an innovative project with the New England Forestry Foundation (NEFF) to protect over 8,500 acres of woodland in western Massachusetts and Connecticut. These lands, primarily located in the Westfield and Farmington River watersheds, contain nearly six miles of

frontage on the Westfield River and are part of five of the seven public drinking water supply watersheds within those communities. The Westfield River is the only river in Massachusetts designated as a federally protected Wild and Scenic River. These lands contain productive forest soils, unique plant and animal habitats, as well as scenic vistas, and they support local economies in 18 communities. Most of these lands abut already protected land and several provide corridors between protected lands.


A conservation easement maintains private ownership and management of the protected land, but it removes the development rights, thus protecting the land forever from the threat of residential, commercial or industrial development. In so doing, the value of the land is reduced since the "highest and best use" of the land is no longer development, and there is a corresponding reduction of property and estate taxes, which makes it easier for landowners to sustainably manage their forest.

By protecting land with conservation easements, many difficult-to-quantify public values of the land are permanently protected. Forests clean the water we drink and the air we breathe. They remove carbon from the atmosphere, offsetting the global warming effects of carbon released by fuel-burning engines. They provide habitat for a wide variety of plants and wildlife. They give us a place to walk, run, ski, hunt, fish, or just sit and relax quietly. Even if we don't visit forests, it makes most of us feel better knowing that they're there. The aesthetic and environmental values we associate with forests become more important as more and more private forestlands are converted to development uses.

Mr. Hull's interest in securing a base of forestland to support his commercial business led him to pursue timberland purchases at a price that supports sustainable management of forest ecosystems and generates forest products in a compatible manner. Typically, commercial sawmills acquire forestland with development rights still attached to the property and thus pay a substantially higher price. This higher price requires greater debt load, which can foster inappropriate harvesting levels to ensure repayment of the acquisition debt. In this case, Hull Forestlands L.P. has negotiated an option to purchase 7,021 acres from the heirs of the Peck Lumber Company. The purchase consists of 34 parcels ranging in size from 25 acres to 812 acres, with an average size of 200 acres. The option stipulates that all 34 parcels must be purchased or none at all, an accommodation that enabled Mr. Hull to negotiate a bargain purchase price for the properties.
A tributary of the Westfield River, the only federally designated Wild and Scenic River in Massachusetts


The proposed easements would protect over six miles of frontage on the Westfield river as well as an extensive network of smaller streams and tributaties.

With the help of the New England Forestry Foundation, Mr. Hull is seeking purchasers for conservation easements on each of the 34 parcels. Utilizing the seller's interest in selling all the properties at once at a bargain price sale, combined with the sale of development rights, and, in some cases, public access to state agencies, Hull can then afford to purchase the encumbered fee interest and not overharvest or inappropriately manage the forest resource. In order to fund part of the purchase price of the 34 encumbered Peck properties, Hull will sell conservation easements on an additional 16 properties that he already owns in towns adjacent to the Wales, Massachusetts Tupper Hill Wildlife Sanctuary, bringing the total land protected to 8, 851 acres.

Public purchases of conservation easements make economic sense. In contrast to public land acquisition, using easements as a protection tool keeps land in the tax base. Landowners continue to pay taxes on the land, while the property remains protected from development just as it would if state or federal agencies had purchased the land. Since only a portion of the rights is purchased, it's also a lot cheaper than buying the property outright.

Conservation easements hold benefits for the private landowner as well as for the public. By reducing the value of the land, they reduce the onerous pressure of estate taxes, which often force heirs to an estate to sell off or develop the property just to pay Uncle Sam. Conservation easements allow landowners to maintain the rural character of the land and focus on managing the land sustainably for forestry or agriculture as they have done for perhaps decades or generations.

The Peck Forestlands are primarily located within the Westfield and Farmington River watersheds and make up parts of five of the seven public drinking water supply watersheds in that area.
Often land that is purchased outright by state or federal agencies is taken out of forest management. The land is no longer used as a resource to produce the forest products that we consume in New England and throughout the world. This has the unintended effect of increasing the resource pressure on the remaining New England forests. When a smaller base of lands is managed for forest products, there is a corresponding increased demand placed on these lands and it becomes more and more difficult to manage them sustainably. Conservation easements are the logical solution to this problem. The natural assets of the land are permanently protected, yet the land remains privately owned and can be managed sustainably for forest products along with wildlife habitat protection and human recreation.

The high natural value of the forest properties Mr. Hull has negotiated to purchase has interested a number of state agencies in purchasing their development rights. Mr. Hull and NEFF have been working with the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife's Conte Wildlife Refuge, Springfield Water Works, Holyoke Water Commissioners, and the Hartford Metropolitan District Commission to secure purchasers for each of the 34 parcels. Hull and NEFF have been working with private foundations to garner additional support for this process, and have secured a $750,000 grant from the Norcross Wildlife Foundation to apply toward the purchase of easements on several of the parcels, which NEFF will hold and monitor.

The New England Forestry Foundation is an apt partner in this project. NEFF was founded in 1944 as a charitable nonprofit corporation with a mission of protecting the working forest in New England. Today, NEFF owns 108 demonstration forests comprising over 20,000 acres in five New England states. These properties serve as model forests for sustainable forest management and are used by NEFF as both outdoor classrooms in partnership with conservation education organizations and as part of NEFF's endowment. NEFF's land conservation staff helps private landowners, municipal governments, and other nonprofit conservation organizations to accomplish their conservation objectives and meet their financial goals for working forestlands. NEFF currently holds conservation easements on over 4,000 acres of New England forestland, and has recently secured an option to purchase the world's largest conservation easement, on 754,673 acres of Pingree-owned forestland in the Maine North Woods.

Mr. Hull, President of Hull Forest Products, is no stranger to good stewardship himself. Hull, who holds a degree in Forestry from the University of New Hampshire, is a recognized leader in the forest products industry in the Northeast, and his sawmill in Pomfret is one of the largest and most modern in southern New England, employing over 50 people. In 1998 Hull received the Northeastern Loggers' Association "Outstanding Service to the Forest Industry Award" in recognition of his leadership in this field. Hull Forest Products was also the first company operating in southern New England to join the American Forest and Paper Association and subscribe to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, a comprehensive system of principles and performance measures that combines the perpetual growing and harvesting of trees with the protection of wildlife, plants, soil, and water quality. Hull has pursued land conservation opportunities as a part of securing a perpetual source of sustainably managed forestland for his forest products business. The Connecticut Forest and Park Association, as well as the New England Forestry Foundation, hold conservation easements over portions of Mr. Hull's 3,000 acres of land holdings, and Hull has donated land rights to conservation organizations such as the Norcross Wildlife Foundation.

Mr. Hull is passionate about this project, not only for the source of sustainable forest products that the land will provide, but for the permanent protection that will be afforded the land. He writes, "I believe we are breaking new ground with this development rights concept, since it is the only realistic way I can see that rural landowners can ultimately afford to keep their lands in forest." As Mr. Hull was negotiating his option to purchase these lands, the Peck heirs were approached by many other interests, including timber liquidators, recreational developers, and subdividers.

Hull continues, "We owe success [in this project] not only to ourselves but to future generations of children, yet unborn, to help protect these watersheds while we have the opportunity to do so. We owe success to the rural communities where the Peck properties are located, whose character could be forever negatively affected by anything other than the continued use of the forest for forestry. We owe continued success to the Atlantic Salmon, whose recent successful reintroduction into the Westfield River will be further guarded by the protection of another six miles of river frontage this project offers."

When this project is completed, it will be the largest single land conservation project in recent Massachusetts history. The success of this project with an industry leader of Mr. Hull's stature and influence will contribute to new inquiries and land conservation opportunities for the remaining large commercial sawmill landowners in Massachusetts and Connecticut, as well as other states in the Northeast. This model of combining public, private, and nonprofit resources to protect working forest landscapes across community boundaries is a major initiative of Massachusetts Governor Celluci's recently completed Blue Ribbon Panel for Land Conservation for the Next Ten Years. If the conservation community is to protect all the resources necessary to sustain this region, it can only happen by incorporating private stewardship as a partner with the public and foundation funding for resource protection.

For more information contact the New England Forestry Foundation, 283 Old Dunstable Road, Groton, MA 01450; (978) 448-8380; website: www.neforestry.org. 

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