When I first learned of this trend, something about it didn’t seem right. Fay is just filling a niche, but people who know nothing about ranching, some who don’t even like it, are suddenly buying up all the ranch land so they can go fishing. And once restoration is complete, these new landowners rarely grant other fishermen access to these streams, whereas in the past, the ranchers often did. I wanted to know more about what is happening, who is involved and what they are doing. And not so deep down, I also wanted to fish one of these creeks. So I made some phone calls, paid a few visits, and drove halfway across Montana, twice.
Bob Kiesling, a conservation real estate broker, connects potential buyers interested in conservation easements with local land trusts and with restoration companies. We met for coffee in Missoula one snowy morning in mid-March to talk about fishery restoration on private property.
Kiesling spent many years working for the Montana Environmental Information Coalition [MEIC], a statewide environmental lobbyist group. The “loopjumping, slipping, and backsliding method of getting results disillusioned me,” he says. From there he started the Montana and Wyoming chapter of the Nature Conservancy-the country’s largest and most well-known land trust. This, too, frustrated him. The Nature Conservancy and other non-profit groups, he noted, rely solely on charity and good will and focus mostly on the habitats of threatened or endangered species. So Kiesling turned to the private sector where he could tap into other habitats, such as those of trout, elk, and deer, and where he could also reach a larger pool of conservation players and resources.
“Imagine owning a place,” he says, “where you can find respite for the soul and, through private enterprise, achieve conservation goals and good land stewardship. We’re not just talking about government and non-profits doing all the work. We’re opening up a whole new area of human engagement. With the tools and resources, we can really increase the odds of getting good conservation done.”
Conservation easements are generally employed to protect land from commercial development or subdivision. They are a binding agreement between property owners and the public that exists for perpetuity. A landowner gets a conservation easement by giving away rights to develop and subdivide the land to either a non-profit organization like a land trust, or to a state or federal agency in exchange for a host of tax breaks.
