A conservation easement is a legal agreement a property owner makes to restrict the type and amount of development that may take place on his or her property. Several southern states are utilizing the Forest Legacy Program to purchasing conservation easements to maintain working forests.

Increased population pressures and more people moving to the outskirts of urban areas has led to the partitioning and fragmentation of forested lands including industrial forest lands. Not only does this impact the economic viability of the forest products industry which ranks in the top 3 economic indicators in all 13 southern states, it also impacts forest health and water quality. The end result is a threat to the values that attract people to the wildland-urban interface and loss of the forestland base supporting a top economic engine.

This presentation examines a collaborative partnership of private, public and corporate entities to protect water quality and conserve natural resource values while sustaining a working forest utilizing conservation easements on industrial forestland. This precedent setting partnership protects lands in the interface zone in coastal North Carolina near Wilmington. The State of North Carolina Division of Forest Resources, working closely with the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust and International Paper Company secured the first Forest Legacy conservation easement on the forested uplands along Town Creek, a major tributary to the Cape Fear River. The State of North Carolina Clean Water Trust Fund purchased a conservation easement along the riparian corridor of the same tract. By matching state and federal dollars, and by meeting the needs of all parties, 1,023 acres were protected from a proposed sub-division and golf course development, while forest management activities continue.