The effectiveness of buying easements as a conservation strategy

Abstract

Easements offer an increasingly popular approach to habitat conservation. We use first principle economic models to examine the effectiveness of easements for protecting biodiversity from development. We compare buying reserves, buying easements, and a preacquisition strategy, in which properties are purchased outright before being sold on with an easement attached. The effectiveness of easements depends on the value of open land for biodiversity and the information available regarding landowners' valuations of low impact land uses. Easements are particularly effective where there are alternative land parcels available to developers and when landowners' values for continuing with biodiversity friendly production methods are relatively uniform. Buying reserves outright is the best approach when land supply is exhausted and developers have little option but to rely on land of conservation concern. Preacquisition can broaden the set of ecological and economic conditions for which an easement‐based approach is advantageous when faced with high initial uncertainty about private land values.