Legacy Story: Protecting the Land Through a Conservation Easement

This story, about Bob and Jane Slagter's journey from acquiring forestland to deciding how to best protect the future of that land, is one in a collection of 12 landowner stories told in Legacy Planning Stories: How Landowners "Like Me" Are Ensuring the Future of Their Land.

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One doesn't expect a Sunday morning drive to be a life-changing moment, but on one such morning in 1973, Bob Slagter, driving just outside Titusville, Pennsylvania, happened to notice a handwritten "FOR SALE" sign tacked to a bridge. Bob was curious and called the number—it wasn't even 9 a.m. yet. The sign had been posted just the night before. The seller, it turned out, was getting divorced and was anxious to unload the property. Bob already knew the land somewhat, having spent his boyhood fishing in nearby Caldwell Creek, which had been "a kind of sacred ground for my family and me." Bob was the seller's first caller. They closed the deal in a week. Looking back on it, he says, "It was meant to be."

Bob bought 25 acres for $4,000 and, over the next 10 years, continued to buy small parcels until he owned close to 60 acres. Since then, he has immersed himself, little by little, in the principles of stewardship, planting about 500 trees on the property—cherry, oak, sycamore, and hickory, among other species. Meanwhile, his passion for fly fishing inspired a couple of bank-improvement projects to help improve the quality of the streams, to increase the population of aquatic insects, and to guard against siltation.

After retiring in 2005, Bob joined the Pennsylvania Forest Stewards, an organization that promotes best management practices by reaching out to landowners and encouraging them to be stewards themselves, so that they not only use best management practices for their own land, but also interact with other landowners in order to promote these principles. Bob did quite a bit of recruiting for the Stewards' volunteer program, including serving as chair of its steering committee. He has also done a fair amount of writing for the Finley Center and for the PA Forest Stewards. "It's a good way for me to stay busy doing something I really love," he says.

In addition to these commitments, Bob works with the Foundation for Sustainable Forests, an organization that acquires, protects, and manages a land parcel’s trees in order to create revenue for the future purchase—and thereby protection—of lands in northwestern Pennsylvania. The arrangement is unique in that, rather than relying on the owner to coordinate between two entities, it combines land protection and resource management under the purview of a single organization, with all proceeds going to the Foundation for future protection efforts. This eliminates the unknowns of economic drivers and allows for a more precise coordination of goals, making the entire process more efficient and effective. Moreover, the owner incurs none of the costs associated with either effort.

It also allows the Foundation for Sustainable Forests to put its philosophy of worst-first cutting into practice.

Although Bob sees the virtue of eliminating economic drivers from the equation of ownership, he also understands that trees are indeed an economic resource that can improve what remains after the resource is removed. This is, as he puts it, the long game in land management. "If you take care of the land properly, the trees tend to flourish, and the land tends to heal and take care of itself. That gives you more marketable trees. In the end, the trees are a resource, and you want to make it a sustainable one."

All of Bob's commitments—to the Stewards, to the Foundation, to his own land—might seem impractically demanding, but he finds it immensely fulfilling. "It has taught me how much I didn't know about what I was dealing with," he admits, from controlling invasive species to clearing the understory, from regeneration to the riparian buffer along the stream—"literally everything. And it also provided friendships that transcend forestry."

Just as importantly, being a steward forced him to give serious consideration to his land’s future. Bob has heirs, who appreciate the land but "have no idea what to do with it." Donating his trees to the Foundation for Sustainable Forests through a conservation easement provided the opportunity to create a legacy his children and grandchildren could enjoy while knowing he did the right thing. "For my wife and me, it provided instant peace of mind. All of a sudden, we knew that no matter what happened, all the work I'd done and all the work they're doing now would go on indefinitely."

As Bob sees it, the key to legacy planning is training, which extends well beyond landowners simply browsing through their options with regard to easements. "For legacy planning to really work," he says, "the more training that’s given, not just to the individual, the better. All we have to do with individuals is get them to admit that just leaving it to the kids isn't good enough. They have to admit that. Because chances are infinite that the property will either be split, sold, poorly cut, you name it. Any of the things you don't want to happen will happen. So training has to be given to people in the planning business—like financial planners, like lawyers—those who are charged with helping people figure out what to do with their hard assets when they pass. People in the legal field have to see this as a service they can provide to their clients, to say, 'Have you thought about a real plan for your property?' Because sometimes the property is the biggest asset they have. It isn't just about educating the owners but the professionals who advise them."