Many landowners are looking for ways to manage their properties for conservation purposes or for ways to ensure that the careful stewardship they have practiced for years will be carried on into the future.

The Thames Talbot Land Trust (TTLT) works with landowners to help them achieve their conservation objectives. Whether the goal is to protect a woodland, a wetland or some other important natural or cultural feature, there are many creative options linking conservation objectives with financial benefits.

Outlined below are several options landowners may wish to consider. This, however, is only an introduction. Your decisions should be made only after careful consideration based upon professional advice. If you would like to learn more about how these and other options might benefit you and your land, please feel free to
contact us.

Like many landowners, you may want to continue to own your property, but still consider conservation strategies offered by various agencies. For example, perhaps you could benefit from more information, advice or assistance on how to be a good steward of your land. You might also qualify for a reduced property tax category, such as a conservation, managed forest, farm or heritage property designation.

Other options for both owning and conserving your land include various types of agreements. One type, a conservation easement, is an agreement between a landowner and a qualified organization that protects a property long into the future. When an easement is registered in the land registry office, it will govern all future land owners as well. It creates a partnership in which the landowner continues to own and manage the property within a set of agreed restrictions monitored by a conservation organization such as TTLT.

Other agreements with a shorter term include management agreements, leases or licenses, or a review of the terms in existing agreements. These enable management and use of part or all of the land in appropriate ways while allowing you to retain ownership.

You may wish to protect your land into the future by transferring the property now, or by arranging to do so at a later date. You can do this in several ways. For example, you might:

 • Give or sell the land to an organization with a conservation mandate
 • Reserve a “life estate” when you give or sell the land, meaning that you or a family member can continue to live on the property until your death or theirs
 • Sell or donate the land and then lease it (or a portion of it) back for a certain period
 • Protect the land first with a conservation easement or other restriction before a transfer or sale
 • Sell the land to a conservation organization at a discount, receiving a tax receipt for the amount below market value; this is also known as a partial donation or as split receipting

Other possibilities can be considered if there is no urgency to transfer the property right now. The property, or a conservation easement on it, could be given in your will; the details are best worked out in advance to ensure that your objectives can be fully achieved. Or, you could grant a “right of first refusal” to a conservation organization such as ours so that we have the first chance to buy the property, if and when you decide to sell.

Purchases depend on a conservation organization raising the necessary funds, and this can take some time. Thus, instalment payments or a mortgage can help pay for a purchased property over some months or years, or an “option” can allow us to raise funds over a certain period to meet a set purchase price. We can let you know what criteria we use in selecting properties to purchase or in accepting donations of land.

A further opportunity to help us protect land is for a landowner to donate a property so that we can sell it to provide funds to acquire a more ecologically significant site. Of course, any gifts of money, securities or useful goods are most welcome. These will help fund our land conservation work and the costs associated with maintaining properties.

Through Environment Canada's Ecological Gifts program, landowners can protect their land, create a legacy and potentially enjoy a substantial tax benefit. Since 1994, under the provisions of the Income Tax Act (Canada), the Ecological Gifts program has provided favourable income tax treatment to donors of ecologically sensitive lands (known as ecogifts), including donors of conservation easements.

A series of Income Tax Act amendments have allowed donors of ecogifts to apply the value of their gifts more fully against their income, and to reduce the taxable amount of the related capital gains. The program also contains safeguards to help ensure that the future use of ecogift properties is consistent with the original objectives of the gift.

Designation of a donation as an ecogift involves two steps. The first is the certification of a property as ecologically sensitive, and the second is the certification of the appraised value of the donation. Most conservation organizations, including TTLT, will assist landowners in negotiating the ecogift process.

For more information about the Ecological Gifts program, go to www.cws-scf.ec.gc.ca/ecogifts or call Graham Bryan (416.739.4286) or Lesley Dunn (416.739.5828).

This Conservation Options page was prepared using excerpts from OLTA's Conservation Options publication and Environment Canada's Ecogifts Handbook (2003).