Elizabeth Friel, NNLC executive director.
Landowners have permanently protected 20,000 acres on the Northern Neck from development since the Northern Neck Land Conservancy was formed in 2004 to help preserve farmland and open space.
The NNLC is an accredited non-profit land trust uniquely qualified to hold conservation easements on the Northern Neck and Essex County. The NNLC is a community-based membership organization with a local board of directors that includes farmers and business people.
“Placing a conservation easement on one’s property is the most impactful exercise of property rights,” says Elizabeth Friel, NNLC executive director. “An individual decides exactly how their land is to be used and protected in perpetuity, which is a really long time!” A conservation easement prescribes the development rights for the future, from farming, forestry and fishing to associated agriculture-based businesses like wineries, farm-stands and cideries, like Ditchley. The property owner may also receive state tax credits and potentially federal tax benefits.
According to Friel, every acre NNLC protects strengthens the farm economy, ensures a local market for agricultural and forestry supplies and services and improves the health of the Chesapeake Bay.
For the property owner, the benefits are ensuring that their land stays as they want it into the future as well as tax benefits. “The financial gain from tax benefits is often invested back into the property, sometimes allowing a farm to grow its operations,” Friel explains.
Farming is the number one economic generator for theNorthern Neck and Virginia, so saving farmland keeps the economy growing. Additionally, new economic opportunities for agribusiness and tourism may be helped by conservation.
The NNLC helped Ditchley’s owners secure more than $2 million in federal and state farmland preservation grants which they’re using to attract tourist dollars to the local economy. “Conserving land is the ultimate environmental protection,” Friel says.
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