George Rogers Clark Land Trust
About
George Rogers Clark Land Trust, a non-profit, community-based organization, serves as one tool for landowners who seek methods to preserve their agricultural land for future generations or to balance new, encroaching development areas with agricultural land, scenic open spaces and wildlife habitat.
Forming in 1999, the George Rogers Clark Land Trust is a group of dedicated and experienced local citizens with a variety of experiences and backgrounds in agriculture and land conservation. What we share is our love of the land and our shared commitment to helping keep Southern Indiana as beautiful and productive as it can be.
Through partnering with farmers in and around Southern Indiana, we’ve been successful in saving hundreds of acres of farmland for countless generations to come. Using primarily conservation easements, the George Rogers Clark Land Trust has helped ensure that many farmers find new avenues for protecting and for securing their farm for countless generations to come.
An agricultural conservation easement (ACE) is a negotiable legal contract that helps the landowner and trust properly protect the land from future development. Easements guide the landowner in goals of productivity and conservation, and to retain ownership and agricultural use of his or her land while meeting the conservation goals that the landowner has in mind.
Contrary to popular belief, a conservation easement on working lands can be used to supplement private economic activity. For example, we’ve assisted in providing one of our landowners with the connections to local foresters to properly timber his land and maximize his profits on his forest. This guidance and countless other benefits are provided by GRCLT with its easements through annual monitoring and consultation.
A land trust is a charitable organization that stewards land through direct purchase or conservation easements. The GRCLT works primarily through conservation easements to protect the rural character, agricultural production, and natural integrity of Southern Indiana.
Landowners who partner with land trusts are able to access the benefits of the trust. These include help with proper conservation of land, help with paperwork involved, and access to funds to aid with various fees associated with conservation.
We assist landowners with property located in the southern half of Indiana, south of Interstate 70.
Easements
Agricultural Conservation Easements provide possible financial incentives for farmers, as well as the opportunity to protect the land from development, while retaining ownership and continuing to farm the land. Click here for a sample of the conservation easement document.
Advice
Our Board has a deep understanding of working agricultural lands. Our Board of Directors has decades of agricultural experience and conservation service, and it understands the problems facing farmers in balancing profits and sustainable conservation goals.
Protection
There’s peace of mind when partnering with a land trust. Preserving farmland for future generations of your family, and ensuring your livelihood lives on, are both individual concerns and vital for sustainable communities. Open spaces and food security are increasingly both local and national challenges that an easement addresses with continuing productivity and conservation.
Our Partners:
