Targeting Conservation Easements to Reduce Impacts of Private Land Development on Protected Areas

containing protected areas (i.e., national parks, national monuments, wildlife refuges, and wilderness areas) are growing more rapidly than counties without such areas (Rasker et al. 2004). Undeveloped private lands adjacent to these protected areas are especially vulnerable to economic growth, particularly rural residential development. Between 1970 and 2000, rural residential development in the Montana and Wyoming portions of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, which includes Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, increased 400% (Williams 2001). This development has degraded and fragmented current and potential grizzly bear habitat on private lands in the ecosystem. Continuation of this trend could jeopardize grizzly bear recovery in the region (Johnson 2001). Double-digit growth in residential subdivisions adjacent to the National Elk Refuge in Jackson, Wyoming, has diminished winter range for the 10,000 elk that use the refuge, and has displaced corridors that they use to reach summer range in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks (Howe et al. 1997). Cumulative impacts of residential development and resource extraction on lands surrounding Glacier National Park in western Montana threaten the park’s natural resources (Keiter 1985; National Parks Conservation Association 2002; Prato 2003b). A primary way land trusts can control economic growth and protect natural resources on private lands adjacent to protected areas is through conservation easements. A conservation easement is a legally binding agreement between a private organization and landowner that limits certain types of land uses or prevents development from occurring on that property. It requires the landowner to voluntarily donate or sell certain property rights, such as the right to subdivide, to a private organization, such as