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Highlighted Article Involving Colorado Conservation Trust

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Open space dreams to protect the wild
By Jerd Smith , The Denver Post
Thursday, April 24, 2008

Thousands of acres of private lands that are home to critical wildlife habitat, river corridors and scenic landscapes would be saved from development under an $800 million plan unveiled Wednesday.

The undertaking is the work of a new coalition called Keep It Colorado. Its high-profile members include the Conservation Fund, Colorado Open Lands, Nature Conservancy, Trust For Public Lands and Colorado Conservation Trust.

The group will focus attention and preservation efforts on 700,000 acres of land in 24 different regions of the state, from the San Juan Valley to the Eastern Plains.

Keep It Colorado officials are counting on landowners to donate easements on critical properties worth $400 million, and they hope to raise roughly $400 million from private and public sources, possibly from severance tax funds.

But severance tax funds are far from guaranteed.

Rep. Bernie Buescher, chairman of the Joint Budget Committee, said if changes are made to oil and gas severance tax rules, then voters will be the ones to decide if new monies are channeled into land conservation.

"And the fact is that there is going to be a lot of competition for that money," Buescher said.

The plan is not without its critics.

"We have no shortage of open spaces in Colorado," said Jon Caldera, president of the Independence Institute, a free-market think tank.

Caldera doesn't think Colorado should be spending tax money to protect land.

"What gets me is that right now everyone is licking their lips over oil and gas money and more taxes," said Caldera. "The only thing we need much more of is energy. The last thing I want to tax is what we need the most."

But Gov. Bill Ritter, who introduced Keep It Colorado to dozens of conservation groups at a breakfast at the Denver Botanic Gardens on Wednesday, lauded the plan. "This will invigorate our collective efforts to preserve what's best about our state," he said.

Colorado has become a national leader in land conservation, saving more than 1.1 million acres using easements, legal tools that allow property owners to claim lucrative income tax credits in exchange for prohibiting development on their lands.

But Colorado's program, enacted in 2000, has been plagued with abuse, with hundreds of easements under investigation for using faulty appraisals and for protecting lands of questionable public value.

Ritter acknowledged those problems, but said he wanted the conservation tax credit program preserved.

"We've found there are people who have abused the tax credit program. And worse, there are people who say it should end. But we are not going to let it go away," he said.

Great Outdoors Colorado, an independent agency funded with lottery dollars, has protected hundreds of thousands of acres statewide, as have local open space programs.

But Colorado's lands are under increasing pressure due to residential and commercial development and new oil and gas production.

"If we are ever going to keep it Colorado, now is the time to do it," said Michael Dowling, chairman of the Boulder-based Colorado Conservation Trust.

Where 'Keep It Colorado' hopes to find $800 million

The coalition has identified 700,000 acres of critical view sheds, river corridors and wildlife habitat that it says should be protected from development. The lands targeted for protection are private. Here's how the coalition envisions funding the ambitious plan:

Total cost $800 million

Private land donations $400 million

Private cash donations $100 million

Public funds from Great Outdoors Colorado grants and local open space funds $100 million

Unmet need, possibly from severance tax funds $200 million

Money committed to date:

$2 million: Doris Duke Charitable Foundation

$15 million: Colorado Division of Wildlife

Easement program valued
By Michael Dowling and Doug Robotham , The Denver Post
Thursday, January 17, 2008

Over several decades, Colorado has built one of the nation's most effective land-conservation systems to protect its diverse and dramatic landscapes. Local governments, nonprofit land trusts, and citizens' groups pioneered public open- space funding and developed innovative financial incentives that, together with philanthropic contributions, have protected more than 2 million acres of private lands with important conservation values. Only California and Maine have protected more land.

However, regulators and the media have questioned whether in some cases, the public conservation benefits justify lost revenue from Colorado's tax- credit program. State agencies are investigating whether tax credits were claimed to protect lands possessing few conservation values or where tax savings may have been based on inflated appraisals. And the Internal Revenue Service is auditing close to 300 tax returns with federal conservation-easement deductions.

Central to these inquiries are conservation easements, voluntary legal agreements that allow property owners to donate all or part of the development value of their lands to nonprofit land trusts or government agencies while retaining private ownership. Conservation easements typically limit future development and subdivision of the land, thereby permanently preserving its important natural features. The easements are particularly useful in protecting Colorado's working farms and ranches, which comprise almost 80 percent of private lands statewide.

Substantial state and federal tax benefits were created to recognize the public benefits of property owners voluntarily restricting the future development potential of their land through conservation easements. In return, land trusts and government agencies that hold these easements promise to protect these lands forever.

Unfortunately, some opportunistic individuals appear to have viewed these tax incentives as a way of profiting at taxpayers' expense without providing lasting conservation benefits in return.

Colorado's conservation community welcomes the state inquiry to investigate potential fraud. The Colorado Conservation Trust issued a report in 2005 calling on the state Department of Revenue to provide more oversight and enforcement of the state tax credit program. Thankfully, Gov. Bill Ritter is now bringing abuses to light and addressing them.

We also must avoid harassing landowners who have played by the rules and not make the system too cumbersome for legitimate conservation-easement transactions to occur. Many easements being audited involve partnerships with city, county, state and federal land-protection agencies, where easement value was purchased by Great Outdoors Colorado, the Colorado Division of Wildlife, or federal conservation programs. The conservation purposes and assessed values of these transactions received significant analysis and oversight, as well as funding, from government land-protection programs.

The land trust community understands the need to maintain the integrity of our conservation organizations and practices. Conservation leaders worked last session with Rep. Alice Madden and Sen. Jim Isgar to pass legislation improving reporting requirements and clarifying public benefits for easement-protected lands, and are active participants in a task force to develop for future reforms.

We must tighten standards so that tax credits are awarded only for fairly valued conservation easements offering substantial public values on lands that will be monitored by capable conservation organizations. But time is running short for us to protect our most important natural lands.

Michael Dowling is a founder and the current chairman of the Colorado Conservation Trust. Doug Robotham is deputy director for programs and policy at the Colorado Conservation Trust.

Guest commentary submissions of up to 650 words may be sent to openforum@denverpost.com.

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