Regional Conservation Plan

EALT’s Regional Conservation Plan sets the planning and ecological context of the area where we operate and priorities for land securements.

Goals and strategies in the Regional Conservation Plan stem from EALT’s Strategic Plan:

• Goal: Conserved lands benefit nature and people in a rapidly growing Edmonton region.

  • Strategy 1: Secure ecologically-important lands that support biodiversity, habitat connectivity, and ecosystems.

  • Strategy 2: Conserve lands that, in addition to ecological value, have high social, cultural, agricultural, or recreation value, supporting smart growth, health, and wellbeing.

Planning Your Conservation Legacy

Are you a landowner looking for more information about leaving a conservation legacy by conserving your land for the future? Click here to read our Planning Your Conservation Legacy guide.

Land Title Donation

When a landowner donates their land, EALT becomes the landowner, and then EALT is responsible for all the maintenance and monitoring of the land. This is also known as Fee Simple, which describes complete ownership of the land. EALT will steward these lands that are entrusted to us, protect or enhance its values in perpetuity, and will not sell or dispose of the land. In many cases, EALT may make these lands available to the public to enjoy for low impact recreation, such as hiking, bird watching, and snowshoeing. There may also be the option for a landowner to continue to live on the land after it has been donated to EALT, through a donation with life interest.

Conservation Easement Donation

Conservation Easements (CEs) are an option for landowners to ensure the conservation of their land, yet continue to use it and have the ability to sell it in the future. CEs are protective notations that can help landowners assure the future stewardship of their lands by granting agreed rights to a land trust such as EALT, to safeguard environmental, scenic, or other values of all or part of the land. The easement is registered on title and stays with the land, regardless of who owns it in the future.

The Conservation Easement agreement includes restrictions that describe what is and isn’t allowed on the land. Some restrictions are very common, such as not allowing further subdivision, draining wetlands, or removing trees. Other restrictions can be included based on what the landowner desires and what EALT can feasibly monitor.

Depending on the characteristics of the land, significant tax benefits may be available to landowners through the Ecological Gifts Program. This includes the provision of a tax credit or deduction to donors, and a reduction in the taxable capital gain realized on the disposition of the property. Ecogifts receive tax treatment that is superior to most other charitable gifts, and the benefits can be carried forward for 10 years.

Stewardship

Once secured, EALT stewards, manages, and monitors conservation lands that we own and that have a conservation easement.

If a CE was placed on the land, the landowner is responsible for all maintenance and stewardship of the land. EALT’s main responsibility is to monitor the land once per year to ensure that all the restrictions and principles in the CE are upheld.

If the land was donated, EALT is now responsible for taking care of the land. This includes maintaining access points and fences, removing invasive plants, and undertaking any major restoration projects. Of course, our ability to undertake this work depends on the funding we have available and staff resources. In many cases, we may need to apply for additional grants in order to undertake some of the work. No matter what, our commitment to you, and to your land, is to take care of it forever.

EALT uses science-based methods to guide stewardship of lands that we own. We consult with scientific literature, conservation experts, and hire consultants if the scope of a project extends beyond EALT’s internal capacity.

We use an adaptive management model for land stewardship to ensure that we not only aim for best management practices, but that we monitor and evaluate these on an ongoing basis to ensure they are achieving the intended outcomes.