Year-end news is replete with gifts of philanthropists to good causes, but many hometown heroes are missed for their very generous individual gifts of their land for conservation. The nation’s 1,260 private land conservation groups have together protected 20 million acres, more land than all of the national parks in the lower 48 states. Forests, farms, ranches, wetlands and open space all have been protected by these organizations through voluntary transactions with individual landowners.
The Conservation Foundation has protected nearly 3,000 acres of open space in DuPage, Kane, Kendall and Will Counties, which provide outdoor recreation and environmental services to our communities. In recent years, landowners in Winfield, Naperville, West Chicago, Barrington Hills, Oak Brook, Plano, Warrenville, Wayne, Minooka and throughout the Chicago region have donated thousands of acres of open space and conservation easements in order to protect woodlands, wetlands, prairies, stream corridors and farmland. These open lands also help keep our taxes from skyrocketing, as open space costs less to service than development.
Many more landowners might be willing to help us protect our heritage of open space and natural lands if tax incentives for land conservation passed by the U.S. Senate become law. These proposals would allow landowners with modest incomes, like most farmers, to deduct the full value of their gifts. The Senate bill would also reduce taxes that landowners who sell land or an easement for conservation have to pay.
Subdivision and development will always be more profitable than conservation of open space, woods and farmland, but these two changes in tax law would make donations feasible for many who now simply can’t afford to give such a gift.
Our local members of Congress have a great opportunity to help see these conservation provisions become law early in 2004. That would be a wonderful gift for our communities.
