Stewardship of the Land
For SAHC, stewardship is the obligation to ensure that each property’s unique conservation values are cared for and the terms agreed to by all involved parties are upheld.
For instance, if SAHC protects a river’s water quality through a conservation easement, then it is SAHC’s obligation to ensure that activities in the easement area that negatively impact water quality are prohibited. The easement terms will require maintenance of a riparian buffer zone in which activities such as timber harvesting are prohibited.
To meet this legal and community stewardship obligation, we regularly visit each of our 90+ properties protected by a conservation easement to document any changes to the property, and evaluate those changes in respect to its conservation easement. We ensure that the terms are being upheld and will enforce the terms if they are not upheld.
For land we directly own, we indentify each property’s conservation values and strive to best protect those values in accordance with a management plan for each property.
If the SAHC Stewardship Program did not meet these obligations, land protection would be meaningless. By meeting these obligations, SAHC permanently protects land and helps ensure future generations will have clean water to drink, clean air to breathe, and fresh food to eat.
We aim to be viewed as accessible, efficient, and trustworthy by both our landowners and the community. We believe that a good relationship with landowners, not enforcement, is the best immediate and long-term method to guarantee the integrity of conservation easements is preserved.
Resources for Landowners
