How to Save Your Land

You can prevent the loss of irreplaceable land. Winnakee is here to help!

Winnakee Land Trust has spent 30 years helping landowners transform their largest asset – their land – into an enduring legacy. Through its protection of threatened land, watersheds and habitat, and its management of at-risk forests, Winnakee Land Trust continues to safeguard what is unique and irreplaceable in The Hudson Valley. We conserve and protect clean air, pure water, biodiversity and restore resilient landscapes that will benefit generations to come.

How what we do affects you!

Did you know that most of today’s high value conservation lands are privately owned? These are natural habitats – especially forests – which have biological, ecological, social and cultural importance and are vulnerable to fragmentation and escalating development. Preserving these open spaces and forests is essential to maintaining the character and quality of life of our region. We invite you to read on to see how, as a landowner, you have an opportunity to make a difference by protecting your land in perpetuity and building a lasting family legacy. Winnakee will be there every step of the way to ensure the land is stewarded and protected forever.

Tax benefits to landowners for land protection

If being a part of this effort interests you, there are many tools that can be used to make a difference for your family, your community, and the environment. Land protections often derive tax benefits and other advantages — while supporting conservation. Your financial advisor can best advise you of the myriad benefits offered to your family as part of creating a lasting environmental legacy.

You can help to ensure that in one year, ten years or 100 years — the natural lands and rural character that we love about the Hudson Valley will endure for the next generation.

Bob Davis, Executive Director

THE GIFT OF LAND

An outright gift of land for conservation is one of the most generous legacies a landowner can give future generations. Donating the title of your land to create a preserve is a simple transaction that ensures the land’s permanent protection and offers maximum income and estate tax benefits (while avoiding capital gains tax). Winnakee’s stewardship-focused conservation model ensures that these lands will benefit from long-term sustainable management plans that support environmental health and habitat restoration for imperiled species.

DONATING CONSERVATION EASEMENTS

Conservation easements allow donors to retain ownership and use of their land, including agriculture, while protecting its conservation value in perpetuity. A conservation easement is a powerful way for a private landowner to ensure the permanent protection of a special natural place. Easement terms represent a voluntary legal agreement between the landowner and Winnakee, tailored to the specific property and the landowner’s goals. Landowners retain the right to sell, donate, or bequeath the land with the conservation easement carried on to all future owners so that the natural character of the land is protected forever. Provided that certain criteria are met, easements carry significant tax benefits. In addition, an easement on a cherished property may make the financial difference that enables your heirs to keep your land in the family. Learn more about Conservation Easements.

DONATION OF PROPERTY TO GENERATE CONSERVATION FUNDS

In some cases, land or other real estate is donated to Winnakee Land Trust with the understanding that it will be sold to generate needed funds for the organization’s conservation work. If the property has conservation value, the organization may sell the land subject to a conservation easement—generating income while ensuring the land’s long-term protection. This approach keeps the land in private ownership and on the tax rolls and can help fund additional land acquisitions. Depending on the details, this option enables the donor to quickly liquidate an asset, eliminate broker’s fees, and in most cases take a charitable deduction for the fair market value of the property, while positively impacting future conservation.

BEQUESTS & GIFT PLANNING

Many landowners wish to retain maximum flexibility during their lifetime and choose to carry out their conservation plans through a bequest or a living trust. Through this approach, a landowner can conserve important lands by donating property to the land trust through their will. A bequest is a provision in the landowner’s will or revocable trust that instructs the estate’s executor to convey land or other assets to the land trust.

LANDOWNER RESOURCES

Stewarding lands to reach their optimal ecological potential is essential to Winnakee’s long term conservation strategy. Winnkaee is here to help provide landowners with resources to maximize the resiliency of their land, increase biodiversity by restoring rare species habitats, control harmful invasives, and become part of globally important connective land corridors that secure pathways for many species survival. View Landowner Resources.