WETLANDS Reviving a swamp George Washington drained EE News: Published: Friday, October 13, 2017 George Washington, working as a young surveyor 254 years ago, drained a swamp. Now government workers are trying to make it wet again.Washington and his fellow investors had slaves dig a ditch to drain the Great Dismal Swamp on the Virginia-North Read more…
Adam Aton, E&E News reporter Published: Friday, October 6, 2017 Republican activists and lawmakers gathered yesterday just off Capitol Hill to talk about folding low-emissions energy policy into the conservative playbook.The Conservative Clean Energy Summit, organized by the Christian Coalition, framed renewable energy policy in terms of how it can advance the right’s fundamental priorities. Read more…
Most of woodland loss was from selloff of timber and conversation to cropland and pasture. The five year period with dramatic forest conversion was 2009-2013 which coincides with the run up in commodity prices Cites a local broker: “High-demand woodland for hunting maybe goes for about $2,000” an acre, Tauke said. “If you had some acres and were Read more…
In Manitoba foreign interests are limited to 40 acres in ‘farm land’ (i.e. land outside of a city, capable of being used for farming) in order to maintain opportunities for Canadians to acquire farm land for agricultural purposes and to support the development of strong rural communities. You can read more here about the foreign Read more…
John Watson/Fay Ranches. Introduced yesterday, the Conservation Easement Incentive Act is a Congressional bill that would make the Conservation Easement tax incentive permanent. By way of background, for the fourth time in recent history, enhanced tax incentives for conservation easements have expired making it very difficult to incentivize land owners to conserve their conservation and Read more…
As “A Catalyst in Land Investment” Terraqua follows current events and trends with an eye to interpret possible positive or negative impacts on land resource values. In the case of slated dam removals along many stretches of important U.S. waterways, many private landowners along these waters benefit from the participation from increased property values created Read more…
This is the latest in the Preserving Family Lands series of Boston-based tax attorney Stephen J. Small. Before going into private practice, Small was an attorney-advisor I the Office of Chief Counsel of the IRS in Washington D.C., where he wrote the federal income tax regulations on conservation easements. “What’s Next” is geared to land Read more…
Last week the EPA announced a newly proposed “Waters of the U.S.” rule that expands the waters under the EPA’s jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. There were U.S. Supreme Court rulings in 2001 and 2006 which defined waters EPA could regulate. The court in these rulings determined the EPA needs to establish a connection Read more…
The announcement of the 500,000-tonne carbon offset sale by Blue Source and The Forestland Group to Royal Dutch Shell is an important transaction to gain attention from landowners and land managers nationwide. Carbon markets and other ecosystem service schemes such as wetland mitigation banking and conservation (biodiversity banking) are an integral part of the new economy Read more…
Two weeks ago I joined my associates from Legacy LandBank, Joe Kelleher and Dick Ludington, at at the 2013 University of Georgia Timberland Conference held at Amelia Island Florida, which included a spectrum of players in the the “timberland business” comprised of 500+ participants public and private pension funds, private investors, family offices, fund of funds, REITs, brokers and advisors, Read more…