Conservation Easements

A Guide for Landowners

The purpose of Headwaters Land Conservancy is to help conserve the natural diversity and beauty of northern Michigan by protecting significant private land and scenic areas and fostering appreciation and understanding of the environment.

HeadWaters Land Conservancy is able to preserve the most outstanding examples of our region in perpetuity by using a land protection tool called a Conservation Easement. A Conservation Easement, sometimes referred to as a conservation agreement, is a voluntary act by a land owner to impose permanent restrictions on their land for its preservation. Restrictions are personalized to the land and the owner. The right to enforce the restrictions is held by HeadWaters Land Conservancy. Each conservation easement is different, just as parcels of land and their special values are different.

Land owners continue to own and use their land and can even sell their property or pass it on to family members with the restrictions in place. We ask that interested landowners provide us with some basic information about there property by completing the Landowner Questionnaire. 

The landowner generally retains the following rights:

• The right to sell the property.
• The right to farm or manage timber.
• The right to hunt, fish and recreate on the land.
• The right to transfer the land to heirs or others through a will.
• The right to restrict public access or give public access.
• The right to maintain and/or build a limited number of homes on the land.

The following information is a general timeline of the Conservation Easement process for illustrative purposes. HeadWaters Land Conservancy follows this order as closely as possible to be most efficient and effective. Occasionally, circumstances arise that change the order of these events, but without omitting any item.

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