Hundreds of thousands of acres of land have been placed under easement protection in Vermont with the promise that the resulting restrictions on development will be maintained “in perpetuity.” As Vermont’s system of easement protection has matured and expanded, serious questions have arisen about what the commitment to perpetuity actually means. This website presents a proposed approach to keeping the perpetual in perpetual conservation easements. We present this proposal in our individual capacities, as persons interested in the long term enforcement of conservation easements. The website also contains background information on the issue of easement perpetuity and examples of different points of view on the perpetuity question.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of this project by the Lintilhac Foundation.
Janet Milne John Echeverria