Private land owners choose conservation easement

---

This article was written and posted on INHF's website in Feburary 2002. 

Natural beauty makes northeastern Iowa an attractive place to work and live. Local landowners Doug Dawson and Wally Bowling chose to ensure their property's long-term health and attractiveness by donating a conservation easement.

Through this donation to the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation (INHF), Dawson and Bowling voluntarily extinguished some of their property rights on 80 acres of natural habitat. The easement is a permanent addition to the land deed and extends to future owners.
Dawson and Bowling have relinquished their rights for grazing, logging, mining, commercial and residential development, and agricultural practices.

"This particular easement is one of the most comprehensive I've worked on because of the number of rights voluntarily being relinquished," said Darrel Mills of INHF. "Every easement is different because some owners may want to give up buildings, while other give up logging and others give up row crops. But this one does it all."

"The idea is to thwart the kind of industrial and residential buildup that has been growing helter-skelter around the countryside," said Dawson. "There's a high recreational value in this region, and that sort of development is detrimental to its preservation."

The 80 acres covered in Dawson and Bowling's easement is located one mile north of Effigy Mounds National Monument, a half-mile south of the Yellow River, and a half-mile west of the Mississippi River.

According to Mills, a one and a half acre building envelope is included in the easement to allow a building to be constructed for environmental education purposes.

Dawson says he would be delighted to have INHF use his donation to encourage others to consider conservation easements. He wants people to know easements can be structured in a way that allows future owners to be happy and creative in how they use the land.

INHF is a member-supported, nonprofit organization that protects Iowa's land, water and wildlife. Since 1979, INHF has helped protect about 70,000 acres of Iowa's prairies, wetlands, woodlands and river corridors. Other recent INHF projects in Allamakee County include the 1,045-acre Heritage Addition to Effigy Mounds and the Doug Mullen Conservation easement.


For more information, e-mail Cathy Engstrom, Director of Communications, or call (515) 288-1846.

Back to the news archive