Friday, Apr 1 2011 9:36AM
Many Wyoming ranchers are selling or donating their properties to a land trust to make sure it will be preserved from development.
The wide open spaces that western states like Wyoming are famous for are being threatened by development. Wyoming's rural lands are being targeted for subdivisions as more people relocate to western states, reported New West, causing more ranchers to turn to the Wyoming Stock Growers Agricultural Land Trust to preserve their land.
The goal of the organization, according to the trust's executive director Pamela Dewell, is to provide working ranchers with an alternative when threatened by high land prices and housing developments. Land owners can create a conservation easement by either selling or donating the total potential value of development of their property to the trust, reported the source, which said the property rights remain with the land trust if it's ever sold. This ensures the land will remain undeveloped even if it changes hands.
The Wyoming Stick Growers Association predicts that an additional 48 million people will call western states home by the middle of the century, putting 26 million acres of open space at risk of residential and commercial development, according to the source.
While
rural community development is important, many people also believe the nation needs to preserve its undeveloped land. In that vein, last year President Barack Obama signed legislation that continues tax incentives for landowners who donate conservation easements between 2010 and December 2011.